It's Only Me
by defying3reason
Summary: Piper and Wally improve their working relationship while the two Jameses compete for a romantic relationship. In this chapter: James-the-architect meets Fury. Things get a little complicated from there.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Hello again and welcome to another exciting installment in my Pavement Cracks series. For newcomers, this fic is part of a larger series that will eventually encompass as much of the Flash canon as I can while focusing on Piper and Trickster. Since I try to follow canon, the fics can be taken as stand-alones, but if you want to read the other ones then feel free to go to my profile page and check the other fics out. The series consists of Pavement Cracks, Late Morning Lullabye, 21, and an unfinished prequel fic called White Light. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

"So…Barry Allen is back from the dead. Can I hang with you for a little while?"

James Jesse still had his hand on the front door, and with a greeting like that he wasn't entirely sure he didn't want to shut it in Piper's face. Then again, their friendship was fragile enough at the moment* without that particular insult. And besides that, really, the Trickster had shown up on Piper's doorstep in much worse circumstances (when he bothered to wait to be let in).

"You okay Piper? You seem a tad…hysterical," James couldn't help but observe.

"Oh no, I'm good, I'm good. Just got grabbed by a man I thought was dead when I was on my way to visit a friend, but good." He was still wearing his costume. James quirked an eyebrow. "I was planning on helping Wally with this mob power struggle I got wind of, but since the old Flash is back I figured I'd best make myself scarce. And, you know, avoid Wally for a little while."

"You're that scared of the old Flash?" James taunted.

"And you're not?" Piper returned.

"Touché. C'mon in, you can borrow some clothes." James stepped aside and let his old flame in.

"For the record," Piper continued, while James headed to his room to fetch some civilian attire, "I'm not _scared_ of Barry. I just find him incredibly awkward to be around. You know what happened the last time I saw him."

"I know," James snapped. It wasn't exactly a pleasant remembrance for him either. The last time either of them had seen the old Flash was when Piper had had a mental breakdown that ultimately ended their relationship. The breakdown had been building for awhile, but it finally materialized during Piper's last battle with Barry Allen (which was also his last outing as a supervillain). The long months Piper had spent recovering his sanity in the Breedmore Mental Hospital had been grueling for both of them. They were still trying to get their lives together and salvage what they could of a friendship**.

James avoided confronting the awkwardness for a few minutes by going through his walk-in closet for something Piper would both fit into and wear. He'd gotten a little chunky during his most recent relationship; both because his ex-boyfriend was a chef, and because he'd been adjusting to different psych meds. However he was no longer dating the chef, and maybe he was on different meds now or something, because he'd lost a lot of that weight. He was still a little heavier than James though, so he settled on a pair of orange sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Piper wrinkled his nose in distaste when he saw the garish orange sweats, but he went into the bathroom to change without commenting on them.

"So what are you planning on doing?" James called through the bathroom door. "Hide from your new best friend until Flash the elder kicks it again?"

"Don't say that James, that's horrible!" Piper yelled back. He opened the door, wearing James' clothes with his costume balled up under his arm. "I'm really happy Barry's back. It's great news for Wally, y'know, since the two of them were so close."

"Funny, you don't look very happy," James observed.

"I'm just going to keep my distance for a few days until Wally can explain everything to his uncle, and get him to actually believe I'm reformed. God James, the way he looked at me…_I_ almost didn't believe I was reformed anymore."

"Well…I might not be the best company. You know I'm still kind of back and forth on the whole super villainy or super heroics front."

Piper snorted. "It's funny, the other night when you had that buzz on you were a staunchly reformed superhero, but when you sober up…"

"Yeah, well…yeah. But hey, if you did take me back, I really would go all noble for you. Completely, boringly heroic," James promised. "So really, by continuing to spurn my advances, in a way you're more responsible for the crimes I commit than I am."

"Uh huh." Piper didn't look convinced.

"It was worth a shot," James said with a shrug. "Wanna watch some cartoons?"

"I guess."

* * *

><p>Piper was getting bored. Having James for a best friend just wasn't the same when they weren't in a relationship. Piper found that he didn't care as much for video games and cartoons in the absence of cuddling, and James was reluctant to do much else with him since Piper was completely reformed. Not that Piper was planning on telling the Flashes anything about James (or any of the Rogues for that matter***). After a couple awkward afternoons of hanging out in which James made some half hearted passes at him, Piper decided to get back to work on some non-Rogue related intel gathering.<p>

James felt a bit relieved when Piper left. He found the awkwardness between them incredibly disconcerting. It wasn't all that long ago that he and Piper had spent almost all their time together, and except for some circumstances beyond their control and Piper's building breakdown, it had been the happiest time in his life. He'd felt completely at ease and content in himself, content that he was cared for, in a way he never had in any other relationship (the closest competitor being Mindy Hong, but she was a bit too judgmental of his eccentricities to quite make it). He desperately wanted to get that back, but he was starting to think it might not be possible.

Maybe they'd changed too much. Piper had become a startlingly different person since James had seen him last; he didn't even _look_ the same. To be fair, James looked pretty different too, but that was just a different hairstyle and a snazzy new costume. Piper's change of appearance went a little further in reflecting his internal changes. He was…somehow softer now, that bite to him that had always been simmering under his playful visage of cartoonish villainy had been dulled. He was still a smartass when he wanted to be, but he definitely wasn't villain material.

He was _nice_ now. James (and the rest of the Rogues too, from what he could tell) figured that Piper was probably the only supervillain in the history of the profession to stand a chance of actually reforming. It helped that he was motivated by more than a reduced sentence. He seemed to really want it.

James was much more conflicted on the subject. When he was hanging around Piper and fantasizing about getting back that shared life they used to have, of course he thought he had it in him. But when Piper continuously rejected him and emphasized rebuilding their friendship, and blew him off for Flash jr., or if James spent a few nights with the guys or they just had a _really_ good poker game…then he wondered how he'd ever give up the thrills and the freedom of villainy.

Robbing banks was way more fun than trying to protect cities from cosmic threats. He already knew that. Despite popular opinion and the righteous speedster propaganda in the Flash Museum, the Rogues had done their part to protect the twin cities more than once (otherwise they'd have to move to a new city and, well, fuck that). Being a cape sucked. As a villain at least you got to call the shots.

James thought through all this yet again while looking through a box of stuff he'd saved from their old apartment in Keystone. He was looking at an old picture he'd taken. The angle was a bit sloppy because he'd held out the camera so he'd be included in the shot, but he liked it regardless. It showed the two of them cuddled up on the bed, Piper looking sleepy but pleased, his pet rat perched on his lap and James' arm slung around his shoulders.

"And I'm still no closer to having that back then when I first got back to the Cities," James said with a bitter sigh. Sure, Piper was talking to him now, which on the surface seemed like an improvement, but really it was just a stinging reminder that things weren't the way they'd been, that he'd utterly fucked up by walking away from the best thing that'd ever happened to him.

"Fix the friendship first," James reminded himself. Piper was worth it. He'd just have to be more patient than he was last time.

He put the picture up above his dresser, then shoved the box of old memories back under his bed. 'Fix the friendship. There's no rush. What's the worst that could happen?'

* * *

><p>"So he wasn't really your uncle?" Piper asked.<p>

He and Wally were splitting a pizza and catching up on all that had happened since they'd last seen each other. Piper's story was quite short; he'd dug up a little dirt on some minor crooks, taken his sister to the symphony, met Len and Lisa for lunch and not a whole lot else. Wally, it seemed, had had a much more eventful couple of weeks.

"Nope. Wasn't Uncle Barry at all. It was frickin' Professor Zoom with amnesia! I mean, can you believe that? Do you know how many crazy coincidences the universe just threw together to traumatize me?"

Piper frowned. "The universe has a way of doing that. Do you need to talk about it?"

"Nah, I was just catching you up. Linda's been a pretty good ear so far. You were totally right about her, by the by," Wally admitted. "She never really hated me, and we've got this amazing chemistry…things were never this good with me and Frankie, or Connie…or anyone ever really. I think she might be it for me."

Piper smiled, but found himself a bit discomfited by the dazed grin on his friend's face. His _young_ friend's face, he couldn't help but think. He'd looked like that a few years ago when he'd had his first two loves back to back, and the universe had spawned particularly heart wrenching coincidences enough to knock the naivety right out of him.

"Are you sure you're not moving a little quick there Wally?"

"Good one Piper. I'm a speedster, I'm supposed to move quick. Besides, it's okay when you really love them, isn't it?" Wally said with a laugh.

Piper frowned. "And how old are the two of you?"

"I'm sorry, and you're trying to speak with the mighty wisdom of exactly how many years on me?" Wally returned.

Piper rolled his eyes. "Six. And a half. Whatever, you're still young and stupid."

"Yep, but Linda's smart and I know she's feeling this too." Wally continued smiling vapidly and stared into space for almost a full minute, which was a good long while for him. Piper shook his head, but decided against teasing him anymore for the time being. He did like Linda after all, and just because none of Piper's relationships had ever worked out for him didn't mean Wally was necessarily doomed to the same fate…though his track record really wasn't much better than Piper's.

Piper was just starting his second slice and Wally his second pizza when they heard some screams and a loud crash coming from the street. Piper set his pizza slice back on the paper plate, calmly reached for his wallet, and when he'd looked up again Wally was already off to investigate. He threw some money on the table, then ran off in the direction the crimson blur had gone, glad he'd taken a few sonic guns along with him this time.

* * *

><p>James was having the day from hell. He'd gone into the office to find his desk covered with those little pamphlets people give you at subway stations explaining how you're hell bound if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And by covered, it had been James-couldn't-even-see-his-own-desk covered. He'd been late for a meeting trying to sort the papers he actually needed out of the mess, and had still accidentally set one down with the design he was trying to pitch at the meeting.<p>

Needless to say, he wasn't confident about getting this particular architectural gig.

Lunch had been spent cleaning up the mess while taking paranoid phone calls from his mother, who was still hoping to convince him to move back to Connecticut, no matter how hard he explained that he was happy and productive in Central City. After lunch he'd scrambled to start working on another project, all the while distracted by hunger (he hadn't eaten anything since a breakfast bagel on the way in), and cubicle mates who kept walking by loudly discussing their plans for the weekend. James had to wonder how they had the funds for all these elaborate weekend vacations when he was just scraping by these days, and they never seemed to work.

He also wondered which of the assholes had filled his desk with socially conservative hate literature.

It was salt in an open wound. Lately James felt he was getting all the negative consequences of being gay in the form of discrimination and isolation, without any of the perks. He hadn't been on a date in ages, probably because he never seemed to find the time to get out to the few clubs and bars that made life for a gay man in conservative Central City tolerable. Facing the sneers or patronizing "acceptance" of his coworkers and acquaintances would be so much easier if he had a good guy to go home to.

At the end of the day, James glances wearily at the stack of work still left to do and resolved to ignore it for awhile. He was too young to be this worn down from life. Instead of taking his work home with him yet another weekend in a futile attempt to get ahead, he resolved to get some good take-out, put on something fun (or at least something that didn't make him feel prematurely middle aged) and hit up a bar.

At first his plan helped his mood. He hadn't treated himself to Indian for awhile, and his chicken korma was excellent. Wearing something other than a suit or pajamas (even if it was only tight jeans and a David Bowie t-shirt) made him feel a little bit more like the twenty six years old he knew himself to be despite his routine.

But then he'd gone out to the bar he remembered to be his favorite and found a candle store. A further search revealed that all his old haunts had since become family restaurants, pet stores and antique shops. James didn't believe for a second that the gay community of Keystone City had disappeared, but it looked like they owned a new neighborhood now and he didn't know where to go anymore.

He really was pathetically out of touch.

Disappointed but unwilling to admit defeat, he hopped a bus and went back to Central City to check out a new bookstore that had opened by his office. So he wouldn't be doing anything overtly gay…he was still out of the apartment, which was a marked improvement. His odds of meeting a guy were still statistically better.

James snorted as he hopped off the bus and started walking towards the bookstore. 'Right, because in a closeted town like this a queer dream guy's just going to drop out of the sky'.

And then he was tackled from behind and flattened against the pavement. Too startled to cry out, James fell with his palms flat out in front of him, wide eyed and breathing harshly with a strange man pressed against his back. Then he heard a whirring sound, and something warm passed above them.

"What was-" James was cut off by a nearby trash can exploding.

Most everybody on the sidewalk had already scattered. The strange man (hopefully a superhero and not a supervillain) hauled James to his feet and dragged him to a slim alley between the two nearest buildings. James wasn't able to see much of the action behind them, but he caught more explosions and a streak of red out of the corner of his eye.

While falling over his own feet in the alleyway, he finally caught sight of his rescuer. "Piper?"

James barely recognized his former neighbor. Back when Piper had lived in his building, he'd been skinny, elusive, soft-spoken but intelligent, and posing as a custom instrument maker though he'd really been a costumed villain. James, not one to follow headlines and not owning a TV at the time, had believed the cover story until he'd been told otherwise. After that he'd followed Piper's exploits on the news, though there hadn't been much to see for some time now. He'd heard about Piper reforming, and seen stories about him working with the new Flash. And, a still somewhat smitten James had noticed, he'd gotten a bit heavy.

'Superheroics must be good exercise', James thought dazedly. The young man standing opposite him in ripped jeans and a baggy sweatshirt with a low, ripped neckline was clearly not fat. James had been fantasizing about Piper back when he was a tad underweight, scrubby and nerdy. This toned version would certainly be in his dreams tonight.

"Stay put," Piper ordered. He unclipped some kind of gun that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie from his belt and ran back into the battle.

James gaped after him for a moment, then, when he got his jaw back into place, he unfroze and ran over to peer around the corner of the building. He stayed hunched over, since there were a lot of ray guns being fired, but it was a quick battle. One by one, Piper helped the red blur subdue five thugs in awful looking homemade supervillain costumes. The gear they were carrying looked much more impressive than their outfits though.

The Flash ran the thugs off scene, presumably to jail, while Piper stood guard over the prone figures of the ones he hadn't carried off yet. James crept over to them, tripping over rubble and ripping the knees of his one pair of sexy jeans as he went, quietly wondering if he'd suddenly gone insane.

"Oof!"

Piper jogged over and helped him up. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah." James watched his face for any spark of recognition, but none came. Of course not. Why would a supervillain turned hero remember their dweeby neighbor the architect? Still though, James resolved to press on. He had gotten along well with Piper. He could find a way to jog the man's memory or, better yet, replace the old associations Piper had for architect-James with something new, suave and sexy.

Oh, that would never work.

"H-hi. Um, thanks for-for saving m-me," James stammered.

"Not at all. It is part of the new job."

"Still though, I've never been rescued by a super hero before…" James mumbled. Piper smiled easily at him, and he continued. "I'm not sure what the protocol is. Do I buy you a drink or something?"

Piper laughed. "Oh, you don't have to do anything like that."

James could feel his face color. He noticed then that the Flash had come back, and that all the criminals were gone. But instead of coming over and interrupting them, he shot Piper a knowing look and took off again.

"Um…what if I just wanted to? Y'know, buy you a drink?"

"Sure James. That'd be great. Just let me run home and get changed-"

"You remember me?" James asked, blown away. "I didn't think you recognized me."

"I didn't at first," Piper admitted. "I don't think I ever saw you dressed so informally. You look good."

"S-so do you."

Piper laughed again. "Thanks, but I'd still rather wear something a bit less bloody and sweaty. Do you still live in the old place? In Keystone?" James nodded. "Great. I'll meet you there in an hour, okay?"

"Yeah, perfect."

"It'll be nice to catch up," Piper called over his shoulder before heading off.

James smiled shakily, then headed back for the bus stop.

Well how 'bout that.

* * *

><p>* See <em>21<em> for all the slash-y details

** Discussed in _Late Morning Lullabye_

_***21_ will fill you in on everything surrounding that. Blacksmith went to great lengths to assure Piper's silence regarding the Network and its frequent clients.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Sorry for the long delay. School coupled with some mild writer's block made this one a long time in coming. I'll try to be faster about getting chapter three done :(_

**Chapter Two**

Piper left James' apartment early the next morning. The architect was still sleeping when he tip toed out of the place, carrying his shoes in his hands with his sweatshirt balled up under his arm. He didn't slip his sneakers on until he was a few doors down the hall, and when he finished he noticed that he was standing in front of his old apartment door.

A flood of memories rushed to the forefront of Piper's mind, along with a dizzying burst of emotion. He remembered replacing the bolt on the door with the James currently slumbering amidst tangled bedding, and he also remembered the other James (_his_ James) locking the old bolt on him while he was standing in the hall countless times (once while he was in a towel: architect-James had come to his rescue on that occasion).

He really didn't want to deal with this now.

Piper hurriedly started walking towards the stairwell, trying not to think about the last time he'd been in this building. The date with James had gone really well. He wanted to keep seeing James, but it wasn't fair to keep seeing him if he was going to be thinking about James _Jesse_.

He didn't need to repeat the same mistakes he'd made with Michael. He'd really hurt his last boyfriend by trying to move on too fast, telling himself he was ready for a serious relationship when he really wasn't. Michael hadn't deserved it, and James didn't either.

Giving himself a little shake, Piper completed his retreat from the building and started back towards his own apartment. He was about a block away when a red blur passed him. The blur stopped short, doubled back, and then Wally was leaning on a lamp post in front of him.

"Hey dude, how goes it?"

"Hi Wally." Piper could feel his face reddening. He knew what this must look like…

"I take it the date with the starry eyed bystander went well?" Wally teased. He fell into step beside Piper, who started walking faster with his hands shoved aggressively into his pockets.

"It went fine."

"Better than fine, I'd guess. Your shirt's inside out dude."

Piper stopped, looked down at his t-shirt, and groaned. "Look, we were just making out. I didn't sleep with him, okay?" Though it had been a very near thing before his judgment had caught up with him. And he had spent the night...and snuck out while the poor guy was still asleep. 'God Rathaway, you suck at dating. Way to send the guy dozens of mixed messages in less than twelve hours'.

Wally held up his hands. "Sure. If you say so…you know, I'm not in a place to judge even if you did sleep with him on the first date."

Piper let out a sigh and shoved some of his hair out of his face. "Sorry. I'm just a little antsy. I, er, think I might be repeating a mistake. James isn't a stranger-"

"James?" Wally repeated. "Isn't that your ex-boyfriend's name? This guy's your ex?"

Piper shook his head. "My ex was also named James. The one from last night used to be my neighbor, and he's had a crush on me for years."

"Oh." Wally looked thoughtful for a moment. "So what's the problem? Is he an uggo or something? I can't really spot guy-pretty, especially once you get down to, like, civilian-level of attraction, cuz I mean I'm all skewed by superhero aesthetics. But if he was an uggo, you shoulda said something. I'd have pretended to need your help for more superhero work instead of taking off and letting you guys get better acquainted. When I was in the Titans still, me and Speedy had these hand signals we'd worked out for when the bystanders were cute or creepy."

Piper scrunched his eyes closed and tried to make sense of his friend's babbling. "James is hot!" He finally yelled.

"Oh. Well again, what's the problem?"

"He's more into me than I'm into him. Just like Michael."

Wally continued to stare at Piper looking mildly confused. "Well he's liked you for years and you've only been on one date. I'd give it at least another couple dates before you start to worry about it too much. And, y'know, don't sleep with your ex again."

"Wasn't planning on it," Piper snapped, caught off guard by the fact that _Wally West_ had just given him practical relationship advice. The boy was clearly still interested in chatting with Piper about his love life, despite the fact that it was not an hour Piper was used to functioning at, and that they were on a public street. He decided to deflect the conversation.

"So what are you doing anyway?" Piper asked. "It's a little early to be running around in costume. Need help with anything?"

"I was on my way back from a League thing when I saw you," Wally answered. "So I'm actually free right now. Wanna get breakfast and hang?"

Swell.

"Sure, but I've got one condition. Will you please stop prying?"

Wally laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I was just trying to, y'know, show you that I'm not wigged out by you, uh..."

"Dating men?"

"Yeah. Guess I took it too far the other way then?" Wally asked. Piper nodded. "Eh. I'm sure I'll find the happy medium eventually. So where do you wanna get breakfast?"

"I don't really ca-"

"Let's go someplace with pancakes. I could really go for pancakes."

"Hold on a sec." Piper took off his shirt, flipped it so that it was facing the right way, and put it back on. "Alright, let's get pancakes."

* * *

><p>Wally was true to his word. He didn't ask any more questions about Piper's romantic life, for which he was grateful. He was guessing that Wally wanted to know the same thing he did though; how would James react to going to sleep with someone in his bed and waking up alone? Piper kept glancing at his cell, which he'd left on the table, wondering if he should give the guy a call.<p>

He moodily stabbed at a pancake and tried to think of something to talk about. "Er...how's your mother doing? I haven't seen her since the wedding."

Wally shrugged. "We stopped talking again. When Dad showed up at the wedding things blew up. My family's like that. We'll probably avoid each other until the next wedding or funeral. What about your folks?" Wally grinned. "Your dad keeping away from supervillains?"

"Of course he is," Piper snapped. Wally quirked an eyebrow, and Piper quickly broke eye contact.

"I'm sorry, did I cross a line?" Wally asked, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I thought we could joke about your dad trying to blackmail a supervillain and getting in over his head. No one got hurt, remember?"

Piper rubbed at his face and groaned. He'd forgotten about that. His parents being threatened by the Network was much more in his thoughts than Osgood's disastrous attempt at blackmail. But Wally couldn't find out about the Network, or Blacksmith really would have his family killed. He needed to change the subject.

Luckily, though Wally was overflowing with good qualities, he was still rather dense and self absorbed. He never noticed when Piper sidetracked him. "Sorry. I'm not usually awake at this hour. Can you pass me the coffee?"

"Sure."

"So how are things with you and the reporter?" Piper asked, doing a pretty good impression of casual interest as he refilled his mug from the carafe. Wally chattered for awhile about Linda Park, and Piper half paid attention while he sipped his coffee.

They both jumped when a third person sat down in the booth.

"Hey Piper, Flash jr. Fancy seeing you guys here," James Jesse greeted, fixing a charming smile on Piper. "I believe you said at least one other person present made dining together not awkward. Kid Flash is another person. Can I join you?"

"I'm not _Kid_ Flash," Wally pouted, doing a very poor job arguing his case.

Piper groaned and rubbed his eyes with his hands. "Do you have to do this now James?"

And then Wally had an uncharacteristic epiphany involving a matter unrelated to his own life. He gaped at the Trickster and then turned back to Piper with wide, shocked looking eyes. "H-his name is James too. Piper, did you..._him_?"

James scowled. "Congratulations Flash, you figured us out. Yeah, Piper and I used to date. What of it?"

"Really Piper? Mr. Vertical stripes and exploding chickens?"

"I'm not talking about this right now," Piper snapped.

"I think the least you could do is defend me to your tactless new friend," James said, looking a bit annoued. "I was a pretty spectacular boyfriend."

"Mm, up until you dumped me while I was hospitalized," Piper returned with a glare. Later on he would regret the brief flash of transparent hurt in James' eyes, but at the moment he found it satisfying.

"You know Hart, that isn't really pancake and OJ talk," James said quickly, recovering his composure in record time. Wally nodded in agreement.

"Well then what did you come over here for?" Piper asked.

James frowned. "Because I saw you when I walked in? Jeeze, you're awfully cranky."

"He's been that way all morning," Wally said with a nod.

"He gets that way if he hasn't had enough sleep. He used to hit me when I woke him up for breakfast," James explained.

"I could see that."

"You know what? Fuck you both. I'm leaving." Piper got up and started walking away. James slid over in the booth so that he was in front of Piper's plate.

"Go take a nap Pookie!" James called. Piper flipped him the bird. "Why's he so tired anyway? Were you guys out late being obnoxious do-gooders together?"

"Nah, he's all cranky because he slept with a guy on the first date."

James had been about to take a bite of Piper's abandoned pancakes, but he lowered the fork back to the plate. "What? Hartley's dating again?"

"Yeah...what, you're not trying to get back together with him, are you?" Wally let out an exasperated sigh. "You can't date Piper now. He's reformed."

"So?"

"You're still a villain."

"So?"

Wally glared at him. "I forbid it."

"Yeah, okay, and you expect that to work?" James laughed at him. "I'm a Rogue! I didn't even listen to the real Flash. I'm not going to listen to you..._Kid_."

"Uncle Barry was right. You're an asshole."

James smiled indulgently at him. "Your uncle was an astute guy. So...what's my competition like?"

"I'm not gonna help you get back with Piper."

"Is he better looking than me, would you say?" James asked.

"I don't know! Piper said he was hot."

James reached over and patted his head. "Thanks junior. So he's a looker. Is he smart too?"

"I'm not answering that."

"Don't really need you to. If he's dating Hartley he's gotta have at least a couple brain cells rattling around up there. Civilian or spandex?"

"Fuck you."

* * *

><p>Piper dropped off into a restless sleep as soon as he hit his mattress. His thoughts kept cycling between the two Jameses, which made for some interesting dreams involving tightropes, blue prints, and lots of explosions. He woke up to a ringing phone, and answered it unthinkingly.<p>

"Hello?"

"Piper? Um...hi...uh...do you have a minute?"

He sat up in bed and rubbed at his eyes. "Yeah, sure. Sorry about this morning."

He heard James breathe an audible sigh of relief. "Oh, don't worry about it. Did you have to run off for a superhero thing or something?"

Sure, let him think that. "I went to talk to Flash," Piper said, which was almost the truth. "Sorry, I should have left a note or something. I had a really good time last night." Which was completely true. He liked James a lot. The only thing that made him reluctant about pursuing a real relationship with him...

Was currently knocking on his bedroom window from outside, holding up a tupperware container of vegetable lasagna.

"I had a really good time too-" James started, but Piper cut him off.

"I'm sorry James, something just came up. Can I call you back?"

"S-sure. Uh, bye."

Piper hung up and stalked across the room. He opened the window and regarded his exboyfriend with his arms crossed in front of him. "Hi James."

"Hey. Feeling less cranky?" He asked. Piper made an iffy motion with his hand. "Sorry for interrupting your breakfast date with Flash jr." James pulled himself into the room and kicked his flying shoes off. "I brought you lunch to make up for it."

"Thanks." Piper grabbed the container and sat down on the bed with it. James pulled a fork out of his coat pocket and handed it off, then sat down beside him. Piper avoided eye contact, keeping as much of his attention as possible on the pasta.

"Told ya so."

"Come again?" Piper asked.

"I so called you and the dweeby architect having crushes on each other."

Piper felt a flare of annoyance, but quickly quashed it. "Yes, I suppose you did. Did Wally tell you?"

"Not intentionally. Damn that kid's easy to manipulate."

Piper nodded his agreement. "Look, it was just one date-"

"Hart, you don't have to defend yourself to me. We're just friends, remember?" James reached over and squeezed his knee. Piper wasn't sure what to say to that. It was fairly obvious James didn't want to just be friends...he looked down at the lasagna again, not wanting to risk seeing one of James' rarer insincere smiles: the one that covered for hurt feelings. "You gonna see him again?" James asked.

"I think so. James...I'm sorry. I care about you too, it's just..."

"I'm not what you need right now. I get it. Good luck with the wiener."

Despite his better judgmenet, Piper did look up as James went back to the window, and he winced when he saw the exact smile he'd predicted. James took off out the window, leaving a highly conflicted ex behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Haven't been doing very well with my historian-motivated goal of citing whenever I make reference to something canon, but I do intend to keep that up when I think of it. This chapter is based on the Terminal Velocity Arc which can be found in issues 0, and 95-100 of the second Flash series, written by Mark Waid with some exciting 90s style art by Salvador Larrocca, Carlos Pacheco, Mike Wieringo (a personal favorite from my childhood!), Oscar Jimenez, Jose Marzan jr. and Sergio Borjas. Also handily collected in trade form._

**Chapter 3**

Over the next few weeks, Piper and James-the-architect went on several dates, and the relationship naturally evolved. Soon they were seeing each other daily more often than not, usually without any set plans. Piper started calling James at work from time to time, and surprised him with coffee and snacks a few times.

He stopped after his third visit though, when he noticed a few people staring at him. It wasn't the 'oh look, a notable costumed personality stare' either, because he was used to that one and knew it well.

"Everything alright?" James asked, seemingly unaware of the attention they were attracting.

Piper was sitting on the edge of James' desk. He stalled by taking a sip of his coffee, then lowered his voice and asked about it. "Am I…not supposed to be visiting you at work? I don't want to get you in trouble."

"It's fine. Jenna's fiancé works across the street and he usually stops by at least a couple times a day," James answered.

Piper glanced around the office again, and noticed a few heads hurriedly duck under cubicle walls to avoid making eye contact with him. "I just wondered…since people are staring at us."

"Oh. Well sweetie, that's because we're gay and this place is full to bursting with homophobes," James said simply, a strained looking smile on his face. Piper scowled at that.

"You're not getting harassed, are you? God dammit, this is why we need anti-friggin discrimination laws on a state level. Okay, it would be illegal if we were in another part of the country, but you may still be able to do something about it if your company has a non-discrimination statement-"

"Piper, hon, that's not…let's not talk about this here, okay?"

Piper realized that he'd gone into rant-mode, and as was usual with rant-mode, the volume of his voice increased dramatically. Now quite a few more of James' coworkers were blatantly staring at him, one woman doing so open mouthed.

"Sorry. Uh…you know, there's a café up the street. Why don't we just meet there during your lunch from now on?"

"Sounds like a plan." James smiled that wobbly looking smile again, reached over and squeezed Piper's hand. "Thanks for visiting me though. It's not exactly a comfortable atmosphere around here some days. You really brighten things up for me."

"Will it bother your coworkers if I kiss you goodbye before I take off?"

"I don't really care if it does."

Piper grinned at that. This was why he loved dating guys who were out of the closet.

And on top of his openly gay status, James was also more political about his sexuality than any guy Piper had ever dated. James had wooed him on date number three by out-ranting Piper with his hatred of DOMA, and he added a new element to conversations trashing socially conservative religious groups by having an actual working knowledge of Christianity.

Technically he supposed, Piper was some sort of Christian, in that his parents had had him baptized. However, he'd had no religious instruction and functioned something like an agnostic. James had been raised as an Episcopalian and was active in a Unitarian Universalist church. He knew the Bible inside and out, and loved to point out when anti-gay Christians were misquoting scripture, or ignoring context, or being extremely selective in which parts of the Mosaic laws they chose to follow. Piper chimed in with his usual arguments about separation of church and state, a precedent based law system, and the country's history of civil rights issues being resolved by the judiciary as opposed to general voters, and the two preachy activists had amazing conversations.

James suited him in his current state in life as well as James Jesse had suited him when he was a twenty year old supervillain.

There was one doubt still nagging Piper about his new relationship, though he didn't put words to it until (oddly enough) he was having a conversation with Wally.

* * *

><p>Piper was finishing off a modification of Wally's JL comm to help it better endure exposure to superspeed (while it was actually on Wally's person, the comm was fine because of the projected speed force field, but if he stopped suddenly and dropped it…), and Wally was pacing around the workshop poking at different tools and half-finished projects while they talked.<p>

"So you still seeing the right James?" Wally asked. He'd started opening conversations that way ever since the run-in over pancakes, much to Piper's annoyance.

"I'm still seeing the architect, not the supervillain," Piper answered, an answer that was becoming a rote response.

"Cool. I mean, if you turned Jesse to our side, I guess I could get used to him eventually…but dude, it'd be really weird if you dated a supervillain."

"I have no intention of dating a supervillain. I like James."

"The right one?"

Piper stopped welding, turned to Wally, and lifted his safety goggles so the kid could get the full strength of his glare. "Do you want me to finish this for you or not?"

"Sorry, sorry."

Piper flipped the goggles back down and went back to his work. "We had our one month on Saturday. It was really nice. I flew him to a place my parents have in the mountains and he only brought three hours of work with him."

"Blergh. Sounds like me trying to take Linda out. She never goes out of reporter-mode. It's really annoying. Man, I hope she's not over analyzing things when we're having sex."

Piper snorted, glad his tools covered the noise for Wally. "Things are still good with the two of you then?"

"Yeah…" He sounded adorably lovesick. Piper would have teased him, but he'd noticed that _he_ brought out similar sighs and stupid smiles in James, so Wally would tease him right back. "So you flew your guy out to a mountain for a one month? Damn. What's a real anniversary like? I mean, you're kinda setting a hard act for yourself to follow."

"I made up with Mummy and Daddy, remember? I'm filthy stinking rich again," Piper said, as though it were obvious. "First anniversary's going to be whatever he wants it to be, pretty much."

"Oh." Wally was grinning in a way that Piper distinctly didn't like. "You're stupidly happy and in love too…admit it Hartley…"

"Oh shut up. I'm not letting it kill my brain cells like you, anyway. What makes you think that?"

"Because that first anniversary sounded in no way hypothetical. You're already thinking about it," Wally pointed out.

Piper felt his face heat up as he realized Wally was right.

"So, finally ready to be happy in a relationship instead of feeling guilty?" Wally pressed.

And then he realized that Wally was right about something else: he'd stopped comparing James to James Jesse, and he wasn't afraid of screwing things up the way he had with Michael. He was simply content. In a relationship.

Well it was bound to happen eventually.

"Here's your comm," Piper said, dazedly handing off the instrument. Wally pocketed it, still grinning at Piper.

"Glad things are going well. So how's he taking the quirks of the costumed life? Linda's keeping pace so far, but that's not really unexpected. She's a reporter. They're usually adrenaline junkies anyway, so lots of superheroes end up dating them."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

Wally frowned at him. "James is a normal civilian Piper. Those don't normally really understand what dating a costume entails until they've got a supervillain's blaster shoved in their face, or their house is blown up, or something like that. I guess you don't get pulled into the big shit very often though. You think James will handle it okay when something big goes down and you're involved?"

Piper frowned. He'd barely dealt with that with Michael (the one time being when Mark Mardon had taken Piper hostage in his own apartment, and Michael had called Wally to rescue him when he'd figured out something was wrong), and his only other serious relationships had both been with supervillains. He honestly wasn't sure how James would take it.

"The guy's kinda twitchy and nervous," Wally said, as though the expression of insecurity on Piper's face somehow hinted at a need for further emphasis.

"Well…he asked me out, and he knew I was a costume-"

"Superhero," Wally interrupted. Piper snorted and rolled his eyes. "_Superhero_. C'mon Piper, you can say it. You're totally one of us now."

"It still feels weird."

"You'll only get used to it if you say it."

"Anyway," Piper said, standing up and removing his goggles. "He's the one who asked me out, knowing full well about my status…" Here Wally looked at him pointedly and he decided to indulge the boy. "As a superhero." Wally nodded approvingly. "So he really shouldn't get uncomfortable. It's not a surprise." He set the goggle on a shelf and faced Wally looking somewhat defiant.

"Yeah, well based on past experiences, the community at large will tell you that just because they know doesn't mean they get it."

Piper sighed, sure that Wally was right about that.

* * *

><p>A few weeks later, Piper got the chance to see if James understood exactly what he'd signed up for.<p>

Kobra's attack on Keystone City was the kind of supervillain crisis that only happened to a city like Keystone maybe once a year. Piper felt a whole host of resentment towards the nerve of the creep. With his fancy bases and equipment, and the host of henches wearing less cool versions of his own over the top costume, he was clearly more a Metropolis kind of villain. Cold would never let an imbecile like that into the Rogues proper.

And worst of all, he operated with what Piper called the Underpants Gnome theory of villainy (and he thanked South Park for finally giving a name to something that had annoyed Piper about the villains suffering from hubris since he'd first put on the polka dotted tunic). Phase one: destroy Keystone City. Phase two: ? Phase three: total world domination! In actuality, Piper (and the Rogues proper) figured a plan like that would go Phase one: destroy Keystone City. Phase two: get jumped by every superhero alive at once. Phase three: painful death.

In essence, Kobra offended Piper as an ex-villain, and he hoped the maniac didn't start a trend with more idiots of the kind in their Cities.

Other than his annoyance with Kobra's methodology though, battling the jack ass and his minions was annoying for other unrelated reasons. For starters, Piper hadn't been joking when he told Linda he was uncomfortable with her stealing a van from work while he was hiding in the backseat. In actuality, Piper very much was an ex-con with a parole officer he did have to check in with on a regular basis. It would have been convenient if Linda didn't make him an accessory to a crime.

Thankfully, Linda smoothed it over and the station didn't end up reporting the theft. In fact, when she mentioned it a few days later she was surprisingly indignant about getting written up for stealing company property to go after a dangerous supervillain. ("It's not like I didn't return it! I even filled up the gas tank. Ungrateful bastards.")

Then, after creating a whole host of drama amongst a bunch of speedsters, some of whom Piper was unfamiliar with, Wally had gone and "died". He was only gone for ten minutes tops, but in that time Linda lost her friggin' mind, grabbed a blaster from a hench, and almost got herself killed. Piper and Iris had both put their own legitimate fear and grief over Wally's apparent death on the back burner to keep the woman safe.

Which now had Piper wondering who was going to be best man at their wedding, and if it would be presumptuous of him to hope he was in the running…

Once things had settled down (and Wally alerted _everyone_ to his status of not-death, not just his girlfriend, the insensitive asshole), the speedsters and reporters had been free and clear to leave.

But the Keystone PD arrived on scene along with the emergency workers just late enough to not actually be any help in fighting Kobra, and Piper had been pulled aside. The assholes kept asking him questions, making him explain his actions, even though he'd clearly been instrumental in saving Keystone City from complete destruction at the hands of a raving loon. Typical.

"Rathaway Publishing House will be happy to compensate Keystone Electronics for the materials I used in combatting Kobra," Piper said listlessly. The place had already been ransacked by looters before he'd even gotten to it anyway. He wasn't entirely sure about his parents footing the bill for him, but he _hoped_ they would.

Then out of nowhere, Piper was being pressed to cover _all_ the damages. For the whole city. Including a downtown that had been turned into a series of craters. He knew it was only because he was an ex-con, and that the force was being leaned on by public officials because all the increased meta activity since Wally and Piper had relocated to Keystone was bad for reelection, but it just wasn't fair. Plus there was no way in hell Osgood and Rachel were going to pay for _everything_.

Piper was severely tempted to remind the officers that he wasn't under arrest, and that they couldn't hold him, but he was pretty sure that that would only result in him actually being arrested.

Then Iris Allen walked up to the cluster of police surrounding Piper, arms crossed over her chest. One of the detectives recognized her and elbowed his partner in the ribs. "It's Allen's widow," He hissed.

"I thought she was dead too," The man's partner whispered back.

"Me too, but I guess I was wrong. Uh…hello Mrs. Allen. How can we help you?"

"You can help me by explaining why you're detaining Hartley Rathaway, considering everything he just did for me, my nephew, and your city," She returned, face set in anger.

Being the wife of a dead cop/superhero clearly held status amongst the Keystone PD; enough to cancel out Piper's status as an ex-con. In less than five minutes, he was sitting in the passenger side of Iris' car being driven to his apartment.

"I'm really sorry about that Piper. They need some new blood in that damn police force. Central too. It's actually in worse shape across the river than it is here. A lot of Barry's old friends have moved on or just stagnated. No one's motivated by justice anymore, just closing cases and getting through the workweek." She let out a disdainful sigh and shook her head.

"Hence trying to intimidate me into footing the bill for the cleanup?" Piper said dryly.

"Mm. Sorry I didn't get there sooner. I didn't notice you weren't with us until we were halfway back to Wally and Linda's. Are you sure you don't want to unwind and decompress with everyone else?"

"I appreciate the offer, but I really just want to take a shower and go to bed," Piper answered. "Thank you though. You didn't have to do that for me."

He started to wonder if he was the only one who felt uncomfortable. Since Iris had come back from the future, she'd never been alone with Piper for an extended length of time. They'd always had Wally or Linda to buffer, and now that Piper was alone with her, he felt the irrational need to apologize for annoying the crap out of her dead husband.

"Piper, don't worry about it. With the way you've been looking after my nephew, believe me, I owe you a few favors. Plus those men were being assholes."

Piper found himself returning her smile. "I think Wally helps me a lot more than I help him."

"But he needs the help you're giving him more," Iris returned. "I've always considered him more like a son than a nephew, so again, thank you. And Piper, I really don't care about what you and my husband used to get up to."

Piper cringed, unaware he'd been so transparent in his discomfort.

"That was between you and Barry, and to tell you the truth, with all the times he ditched out on plans with me to go fight you, or Captain Cold, or Weather Wizard or whoever, I did appreciate that when it was you, by the time he got around to remembering his fiancée Barry would have one hell of a story to make up for it."

That startled a laugh out of Piper. "I was acting mostly out of boredom in those days."

"I got that. He didn't though. He thought you were all pretty much the same, which was a shame. If you had reformed earlier, he really could have used your help. And maybe Wally would be a bit further on the road to maturity."

Again, Piper laughed. "If he'd known me when I was a reckless twenty something? Nah, if anything, we'd have pulled each other the other way."

"Well I guess things happen when they need to then."

Iris was not at all what he'd expected, though come to think of it Piper shouldn't have been as surprised as he was. Wally had always said his aunt was the driving force in his life to become the person he'd become, and Piper was nothing if not fond of his "stupid boy".

By the time Iris dropped him off, Piper was in a better mood, but only marginally so. He was tired, cranky, and desperately wanted his bed.

He staggered into his front hall, dropped his keys in the bowl on the side table, and kicked the door shut behind him.

"Hartley, is that you?"

"James?" He'd given James a key earlier in the week, but was still surprised to see him in the house.

James walked into the hall to meet him, and his eyes widened when he saw his exhausted looking boyfriend. "Oh Hartley, you look wiped. Is it okay that I'm here? That I'm-that I want to help you, or should I go?"

Piper felt a strong rush of affection towards the other man. "Please stay. I could really use a friendly face right now."

"I thought that might be the case when I, when I saw the news. That man in the snake suit, yeesh."

James guided Piper towards the bathroom, and even though he was only tired, not injured, he still leaned against the comforting weight of his boyfriend. Piper smiled, and repeated the thought to himself. 'My boyfriend…'

The bathroom was laid out with supplies for a relaxing post-battle scrub down, including comfy PJs and slippers. "Here, you clean up and relax, and I'll go start on dinner. I brought everything with me, and I'll clean it all up, so don't worry about anything."

Piper gaped at his transformed bathroom, then turned to look at James in wonder. "J-James, I really don't…you are _perfect_." Then he pulled him into a kiss that left the timid architect flushed but pleased looking.

"I just figured if I were out risking my life, I'd want to come home to a tubby and a hot meal."

"And a good, gorgeous man," Piper finished.

James' cheeks further reddened, and he looked positively enticing. Piper was tempted to skip dinner and invite James into the shower with him, but his abused body wasn't in the mood to cooperate. He bathed alone while James cooked, and after dinner James cuddled with Piper while he sleepily recounted the Kobra fiasco in detail. Once Piper dropped off, James crept out of bed, cleaned up, and left for his own apartment.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Piper found a plastic container of leftovers in the fridge with a note inviting him to their usual café for James' lunch hour. Grinning, he went over to the phone and called Wally.<p>

"Hey, just so you know, James _gets it_."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: This chapter is a build-up for the storyline Presidential race from issues 120 and 121 of the second Flash series by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Paul Ryan and John Nyberg. And let me tell you all how happy I am that Piper's canon boyfriend has the same first name as Trickster. Hopefully this chapter isn't nearly as annoying to read as it was to write..._

**Chapter Four**

"Well I'm moving to Canada."

"Nope," Wally said flatly. "You're not allowed."

Piper defiantly crossed his arms across his chest. "According to the latest polls, Cartwright actually stands a chance of being elected, even though he's a third party candidate running on a platform of the most vitrolic, hateful and ignorant social politics I've ever encountered. The fact that this man has an actual chance at the White House killed what little faith I had left in the American people. I'm moving to Canada, and you're not going to stop me."

"Yeah dude, I am. I need you here," Wally said simply. "You can go, but I'll just bring you back again. As many times as I need to, over and over." He calmly took a few bites of his fried rice, the superspeed motions of his chopsticks contrasting eerily with his deadpan expression.

"Plus I'm not moving to Canada," James said quietly. He reached over and squeezed Piper's knee, then reached for a different carton of chinese food on the coffee table.

Piper scowled, and slid down lower on the couch.

The two couples were gathered at Wally and Linda's for a casual couples thing, something they attempted to do once or twice a week and usually succeeded in accomplishing maybe once a month (Wally and Piper usually got called off for superheroics, Linda followed their exploits and usually had a new story by the end of the night, and James balanced his check book and planned his budget for the week until they got back).

Linda rolled her eyes. "Quit being so dramatic Hartley. You know, there _are_ some redeeming factors in our political system, chief among them being your ability to get out there and do something about it if you're upset."

"Meaning?"

"Quit your bitching and go campaign for a candidate you support," Linda said.

Piper let out a melodramatic sigh. "But I don't support any of them!"

"That's true. He's even bitching about the socialist candidate," James said.

"Eh, it's not like he's got a chance anyway." Wally frowned thoughtfully at the TV, which they'd muted after Piper's first rant. "Cartwright though...that is kinda scary."

"Piper, if you're not going to get involved then you're not allowed to complain," Linda decided.

Wally brightened at that. "Sounds good to me."

"All in favor say aye," James said. Three "ayes" were heard, and Piper grumbled under his breath. "Aw sweetie, I'm sorry we're all picking on you, but you're really bringing down the couples dinner."

"It's our fault. We're the ones who let him put on CNN," Linda said with a smirk. "Next time we'll know better."

Piper grumpily set his carton on the coffee table, got up, and walked out of the room in a huff.

Linda looked between Wally and James, who were both eating and looking utterly unconcerned. "Did we go too far? Should someone go talk to him?" To her surprise, Wally and James both put their fingers on their noses.

Wally was, as expected, the first to do so.

"You know, either you're not allowed to use superspeed or we need to come up with a different way to decide this," James grumbled.

Wally laughed. "I am not giving up the nose game."

Linda scowled. "You're both being really insensitive. Hartley looked like he was actually upset. You're supposed to be his best friend and you're supposed to be his boyfriend. Is this really how you want to respond?"

James smiled meekly at her. "Linda, hon...I love Hart to death, but you must have noticed that he's a wee bit..._dramatic_." Wally snorted at that. "Believe me, even if it was Wally to go out there and talk to him right now, I'd still be talking to him later. Hell, we'll be talking about this later on no matter what. Don't worry though, I'll take care of my sweetie. I've already been working on this Cartwright situation for a few days."

"Really?" Linda asked. "What are you doing?"

"I'll let you know if it checks out." He got up and followed after his melodramatic boyfriend. Piper wasn't in the kitchen, which was the way he'd been heading, so James poked his head out the backdoor and found Piper sitting in the yard with his chin in his hands. "Hey Piper. So...sorry we all ganged up on you."

"It's okay, we have that dynamic as a group. I just wanted a minute away from the TV."

"You're the one who wanted to get an update on the election though."

"I know it's just...urgh. Doesn't this scare you at all?"

James shrugged. "Not really. I mean, however well Cartwright's doing in the polls, I don't think he'll actually be elected. And even if he was...our system has some safeguards in place to keep him from messing with our individual liberties all that much. He might block marriage, but I don't think he can really do much else. It won't change our day to day lives all that much."

Piper shuddered. "The fact that he has this much support means a lot of people don't think we deserve the same basic rights as everyone else. That's...that's the type of spirit that had me living out of a car when I was a kid. I just...I just don't like being confronted with the rest of the world judging me quite so blatantly. It would be different if Cartwright was appealing to other things, but he's really sticking to 'marriage between a man and a woman', 'keep the gays out of our schools' and all that other bullshit."

James wrapped a comforting arm around Piper and gave him a squeeze. "On the plus side, we both know he's powered by bullshit. And I think a lot of people agree with us. But sweetie, Linda's right. If you're this upset, we should get involved in the election."

Piper rolled his eyes. "So who do you support?"

"I've found a lesser of the evils that I'm going to vote for, but there actually is an anti-Cartwright/O'Neil campaign too. You don't have to be pushing for a particular candidate. These guys are just spreading the word that Cartwright is a ginormous, ignorant, bigoted douchebag. My friend Jesse started it up. I'm gonna swing by the campaign headquarters after work tomorrow. You wanna tag along?"

"I'll...check it out."

* * *

><p>Fridays had been declared dress down days at James' office, and he decided to take advantage of this to grab an extra twenty minutes of sleep in the morning. When he couldn't justify hitting the snooze button one more time, he rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and one of Piper's t-shirts that had been left on an armchair, and stumbled out the door with briefcase in hand and in need of a caffeine fix.<p>

It wasn't until he got an odd look at the Sundollars that he noticed what was on his borrowed shirt; it was a particularly provocative Eddie Izzard t-shirt (well...it actually wasn't that provocative for a drag comedian, but it was certainly more provocative than what he would have liked for work attire).

"Shit," James muttered, staring down at the image of a heavily made up man with killer heels emblazoned on his chest. He didn't have enough time to go home and change.

He ended up calling Piper and begging him to swing by his work with a new shirt (it took a while to get Piper to agree to it; he wasn't fully coherent before noon on most days), and decided to just sit in his cubicle and keep his head down until Piper showed up. If he was lucky, no one would notice.

James walked through the office with his briefcase clutched to his chest, tersely nodding at some of his coworkers as he made his way to his desk. A few people gave him odd looks, but almost everyone ignored him.

"Hey Jimmy!"

Pretty much everyone but Zach. James found Zach to be one of the most grating people in the office to be around, not least of which because, despite James' clearly stated preference, Zach insisted on calling him Jimmy.

"Hello Zachary." It was childish, but James responded in kind. He barely looked at the other man as he edged by to get to his desk.

James was barely in his seat before Zach planted his elbows on the desk right where James had been about to set his coffee. He rested his chin in his hands and smiled at James, which was more than a little creepy. Behavior like that made James wonder if maybe Zach had some kind of slight mental condition that impaired him socially.

"So, I heard you got Davey in trouble. That wasn't very nice Jimmy."

"Yes, well, Davey's never been terribly nice to me. I was just trying to get him to stop." James irritably set his coffee in an awkward spot on his desk and opened his briefcase, hoping Zach would get the hint and leave.

"Dave was just trying to help you, you know," Zach pressed.

James' hands were starting to shake. David Jarvis had been responsible not only for the pamphlets on his desk, but also harassing phone calls to James' clients, making sure everyone knew that not only was this particular architect queer (and thus morally deviant in David's lingo) but also dating an unstable supervillain (nevermind that Piper was reformed and perfectly mentally healthy at this point). Since Jarvis had been spoken to (not fired, not suspended, not even written up, just _spoken to_), James had had a much easier time getting jobs.

"I mean, your clients have a right to know who they're really dealing with. And if they don't like it, it kinda tells you something, don't you think?" Zach asked.

James finally looked up at him, tight lipped and with narrowed eyes. His stomach did a flip when he noticed what Zach had worn to the office for dressdown day. It was a Cartwright t-shirt.

Zach smiled at him, stood up, and waved over at his cubicle, which was decked out in Cartwright/O'Neil propaganda. "I see you noticed my shirt. Want a campaign button Jimmy?"

James bit his lip so hard it bled. It took him a minute to find a retort that wouldn't get him fired. "I-I've got a lot of w-work to get done. Zachary."

"Right. Well, better get going on that." Zach whistled as he walked back over to his desk. As far as James could tell, he hadn't noticed the Eddie Izzard shirt.

As soon as Zach was out of earshot, James picked up the phone and frantically dialed Piper.

"I was just about to leave, I'm sorry. I move slow in the mornings," Piper whined defensively, as soon as he picked up.

"No, sweetie it's okay. I don't need the shirt anymore. You should..." James' eyes lingered on a particularly large poster of Cartwright that had been taped up by the water cooler. "You should just go back to bed. I'm fine."

"Jay, I don't want you to get harassed at work. I don't mind swinging by with the t-shirt, really."

A wobbly smile found its way on James' face. Mostly he hated when people shortened his name, but when Piper did it...(plus he didn't use _Jimmy_).

"I promise, I'm fine."

"You were really freaking out like less than five minutes ago. What happened?" Piper asked. He sounded really concerned, and James felt bad for worrying him.

"Nothing big. I'll tell you about it later."

"Can I still meet you for lunch today?"

"Of course." James figured with a morning like this, he was really going to need the pick-me-up he got from seeing his boyfriend.

"Okay great. I'll see you later Jay."

"Bye Hart."

James hung up, tapped his fingers against his leg nervously for a few minutes, and then decided it was time to actually get down to work. He opened his desk drawer to find a pen and slammed it shut again as soon as he saw the contents.

It had been filled to bursting with pamplets on Cartwright's ten ways the radical left is turning your children gay with sex education.

"I've gotta find a new job."

* * *

><p>James Jesse glanced with distaste at the bland ass office building the object of his affection's current sweetheart worked at. He contemplated the boring brick facade and the orderly rows of windows, and wondered why a building full of architects, graphic designers and interior decoraters didn't look a bit more imaginative. It didn't really speak well of their abilities.<p>

'Alright Jesse, you're not here to critique the surroundings,' James thought to himself. He was there because he was whipped, something he knew full well, though the knowledge didn't make it go down any easier. Whipped by a man he wasn't even dating.

Piper had called him, saying he was upset about James-the-wiener, which had gotten James' hopes up. He'd feigned being a sympathetic listener, all the while wondering how soon would be too soon to ask Piper out again, and in the process hadn't listened very closely at all. Then Piper had asked him for a favor, and like a lovesick teenager, he'd responded without knowing what Piper wanted him to do.

And now he was delivering a change of clothes, a love note, and a coffee roll from the couple's favorite bakery to his rival. It was thoroughly unfair.

Though it did make James wonder if maybe this was his payback for all the times he'd inwardly gloated about dating Piper back when James-the-wiener had been pining for him from a distance. He did not appreciate the role reversal.

James glanced down at the scrawled instructions on his hand, then took the elevator up to James-the-wiener's floor. It took him a few minutes to find the appropriate cubicle, but before he was even halfway across the room he fully understood why the wiener had insisted Piper not come visit him at work.

"Hey Wiener. Didn't realize you worked in a Cartwright campaign headquaters."

James-the-architect jumped, then looked behind him where James was leaning against his cubicle wall. James held out the bag containing Piper's care package, then frowned when he saw the t-shirt his rival was wearing. "I bought Piper that shirt."

"He didn't mention that." The wiener picked at the fabric, a look of distaste on his face. "Well I won't be wearing this again."

"Wonderful. Look, Piper asked me drop this shit off for you. Will you just take the damn bag so I can leave?"

The wiener hesitantly grabbed the bag, looking a bit reluctant to do so, which kind of made James wish he had thought to gimmick up the care package. He opened it, and was visibly reassured by the note on top, obviously written in Piper's messy scrawl. He glanced up at James, frowning. "I didn't realize Piper was still friends with you."

"That a problem?"

"I hope not. James, I don't-there's no reason for us not to get along, right?" He looked hopeful. It was cute and kind of sad.

"Of course we're not going to get along. You're sleeping with the man I'm in love with. C'mon Wiener, I thought you were smarter than that."

His face flushed a little at James' words, but he gave no other visible indication of being upset. "We _could_ be mature adults and just accept the fact that we're both important to Hartley. God only knows why, but we are."

"You know pipsqueak, I couldn't agree more. I just can't fathom what it is Piper sees in you. Just more of his eccentricity, I guess." That one got Wiener's hands shaking. James knew that this was stupid, and that immature barely began to cover it, and that Piper would probably hear about it later and be pissed, but really it was Piper's own stupid fault for sending his smitten ex to talk to his current boyfriend.

"Hey Jimmy, who's your visitor?" The guy from the Cartwright cubicle called.

"Jimmy?" James asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No, don't even."

James looked over at the dingus in the Cartwright shirt, then down at the skinny little architect who looked like he was going to snap. Suddenly even _he_ felt bad, and his current fantasy of choice involved strapping James-the-wiener to a Wile E Coyote rocket while he and Piper rode off into the sunset.

The dingus walked over to them and leaned against the cubicle wall. "Heya Jimmy," he greeted. He nodded towards James. "Hey. _Nice hair._"

James flipped his ponytail at him. "I'm rather fond of it."

"So you a butt pirate too?"

James' eyebrows shot up. He turned to look at the other James. "Did he really just ask that?"

"Uh huh."

"And you work here? Like five days a week, you show up here and put up with this shit?"

"Uh huh."

"And...you don't regret being out of the closet?" James pressed.

Other-James looked at him like he was crazy. "Of course not."

Well that was probably what Piper saw in him.

"Hm. Okay." He turned to the dingus. "Just so you know, I'm not affiliated with this guy. In fact, I don't even like him."

"Okay..." Dingus looked confused, which was what James was going for. Then he punched the guy in the face.

Not only did Dingus go down, he took out a cubicle wall with him.

Heads popped around cubicle walls all around the office. Other-James was sitting in his desk chair with his hands clamped on the arm rests, looking terrified, while Dingus groaned and clutched at his face.

James grinned and waved at the room. "Remember, not affiliated with this guy!" Then he clicked on his flying shoes, raced over to the convenient wall of evenly placed windows, popped one open and took his leave.

* * *

><p>James ended up missing his lunch break, so Piper didn't end up seeing him until the end of the day, when they were supposed to head down to the anti-CartwrightO'Neil campaign headquarters together. He waited on a bench outside James' building, and noticed that an awful lot of James' coworkers were giving him funny looks as they left.

James finally showed up, looking very harassed and still wearing the Eddie Izzard t-shirt.

Piper smiled at him, hoping it was a placating gesture. When James continued to look like a healthy mix between exhaustion and irritation, he decided a compliment wouldn't hurt. "Hey Jay...I love seeing you in my clothes. You look hot-what?"

"You never told me other-James bought you this shirt."

"He...oh, right. He did, didn't he? He mentioned that?"

James snorted. "Ya huh. He mentioned that. Right before he assaulted one of my coworkers. Why the hell did you send that weirdo to my office?"

Piper frowned. "Because you forbade me from visiting you and I was worried and it...seemed like a better idea at the time. I'm sorry James. I couldn't get ahold of Wally or Linda."

James sat down next to him on the bench and dropped his head into his hands, long fingers digging into his soft brown hair. Piper winced. "I'm sorry you had such a lousy day. I was trying to make it better, I promise. We can just head back to one of our apartments if you'd rather...I mean, we don't have to go to the campaign thing tonight."

James looked up at him, steely determination in his eyes. "Hon, I've had the day from hell both because of your bad judgment in sending a loon like the Trickster to my office, but mostly because my office is full of homophobic bastards who don't respect me. We're going to that meeting, and we're going to be as gay as we damn well want, and we're going to figure out a way to kill every political ambition Jacob Cartwright and anyone like him has ever had."

Piper inhaled sharply. "Oh Jay, I am so in love with you right now."

James squeezed his hand back. "I love you too Hart. Now let's get some constitutional protection on that."


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: So it's been almost a year since I've updated...sorry about that. The Pavement Cracks Universe is not dead, nor was this hiatus expected to last so long. I've suffered some tremendous upheavals in my personal life, which have included homelessness and having my comics collection locked away in storage. Even when I got it back, I've been in such constrained situations that I found it easier to work with other fic projects that aren't following the canon material quite this minutely. Anyway, I've dug out the comics I need, and I hope to get back to updating this universe on a regular basis (and reviews would most definitely encourage me in that goal)._**  
><strong>

_I'm also at the beginnings of a professional writing career right now. My first work was published this month and is available from MLR Press, and I've set up a facebook account for my pen name, Valerie Myers. If you're interested in any of that, I have some more info on my profile.  
><em>

_This particular chapter quotes heavily from Flash #120 The Presidential Race Part One: Circular Logic by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn. Art by Paul Ryan (shit you not, that's the guy's name) and John Nyberg.  
><em>

**Chapter Five**

James' plan worked like a charm. In fact, it possibly worked a little too well. Piper was definitely in high spirits when they left the anti-Cartwright/O'Neil campaign headquarters (officially it was a voting education center, but no one had any illusions about their primary purpose). It was nice to see him in a good mood (because even if he sounded angry, if he was ranting social-political he actually was happy), but it was also getting a bit trying to listen to him.

And James shared almost all of Piper's political beliefs (he wasn't quite sold on ditching capitalism, but as far as social politics went they were in perfect synch). He could only imagine how uncomfortable this newly enthused rant-happy Piper was going to be for Wally.

After the meeting they went to Piper's apartment, where they'd started spending the brunt of their time. It was pretty obvious that Piper didn't like being in his old building, so James didn't pressure him to visit. In fact, he was hoping they were moving in a direction that would have him leaving the place, but he was afraid to bring it up.

Piper was still going all while they took off their coats and shoes, even though James had not said a word since first introducing Piper to his friends about four hours ago. Piper continued to rant while James went into the bedroom and swiped some of Piper's pajamas, and he leaned against the open bathroom door while James silently changed into them and then brushed his teeth.

Finally having enough of hearing about the evils of Jacob Cartwright, and some scathing insults leveled at right wing conservative nut jobs, James walked over to Piper, tangled his fingers in his hair, and shut him up with a kiss.

"I'm glad you're happy, Hartley. Really hon, I love seeing your eyes blaze with that fire. Your commitment to social justice is really inspiring, and I fall more in love with you every day because of it. But I had a _really_ lousy day at work before we went to that campaign meeting, and it's Friday, and I just want to unwind for a little bit before bed. Can we talk about something else for at least a few minutes?"

Piper pouted, and that was endearing too. "I thought you cared about getting equal rights for the LGBT community as much as I do."

"I do. Really, I do. But one of my goals as a proud gay man is to _enjoy_ my proud gay life. I'm only asking for fifteen minutes before bed. We already agreed to canvass a couple of neighborhoods and hand out pamphlets on my days off this week, remember?"

Piper smirked. "I suppose that is a commitment."

"You don't get to be snarky about that, Hartley. You've never held down a job with regular work hours before. You're completely out of touch with how much I need those days off."

"I'm sorry." Piper leaned forward and kissed his temple. "I'll join you in a sec, and then we can talk about whatever you want."

"Cool." James started for the bedroom, but on impulse he turned around and looked at the borrowed Eddie Izzard shirt that he'd left on the floor in front of the bathroom sink. It was stupid and petty, but he really wanted to ask Piper to throw it out.

"Jay…is everything alright?" Piper asked. James regarded him in confusion. "Your face…you just looked…never mind. I'll see you in a sec."

"Mm hm." James flopped onto the bed and grabbed an Allen Ginsberg paperback he'd left on Piper's nightstand. He read a few poems while he waited, and after a few minutes Piper walked into the room with his hair neatly brushed and tucked behind his ears, shirtless, clad in thin cotton sleep pants.

James was a little surprised to see him already ready for bed. They kept different schedules (in that Piper didn't really have a schedule but habitually stayed up until sunrise and slept till noon), and as a result even when James slept over he typically went to bed alone. Piper usually kept his hair out of his face with a messy ponytail when he was awake, and James enjoyed the rare moments when he got to see it streaming down his back. The healthy red-gold strands were incredibly lovely; definitely one of his boyfriend's best features.

Piper crawled over the bed to him and wrapped his arms around James' waist. He settled his head on James' chest and looked at the book. "What are you reading?"

"Rereading Howl. It's one of my favorites. I used to have it memorized when I was a freshman, but I don't think I could still recite it. I don't spend enough time with this stuff anymore," James lamented. Work took up almost all of his waking hours, and now that he had a needy (though he'd never say that to Piper's face) boyfriend, he was surprised he managed three meals a day and six hours of sleep.

"I'm sorry I used up all my conversation time on ranting, because there is something else I wanted to talk to you about," Piper murmured. He tucked his head under James' chin and nuzzled close against his neck. James liked the cuddles, but he would have liked to see Piper's facial expression after such a cryptic comment.

"What is it?" James asked. He set his book aside and started running his fingers through Piper's hair.

"I was wondering…are you happy?"

That startled a breathy laugh out of him. "I was just teasing you, but you're cute. Of course I am. I don't mind if you rant and rave about all the bigoted dingbats in the right wing. I feel the exact same way."

"I don't just mean that," Piper said. "I mean…in general. Look, you're getting harassed at work, and they're passing you over for gigs and promotions. You work twice as hard as everyone else in that office, and I just don't think it's as rewarding for you as it could be. And I know _I'm_ a pain in the ass. I like to think I have some qualities that offset the shortcomings, but we both know I can make a stressful day worse. Like this morning. So please don't lie to me about that."

James was tempted to reassure Piper that he was fine, but truthfully he wasn't. He had been under an inordinate amount of stress lately, though he'd been trying to hide it. It was comforting to hear that Piper had picked up on it all anyway. The concern was much appreciated.

"I have been stressed out lately…but it's nothing to do with you. _We're_ fine. I'm as madly in love with you as ever, and I will continue to be even if you get me fired."

"Will you let me help?" Piper asked.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Honestly…I think you should quit. I mean, look for another job, of course, but get the hell out of that office. They don't appreciate you, they don't deserve you, and I'm sure you can find another place to work where your talents will be noticed. I could talk to my parents and see if they have any useful connections."

"Ah, nepotism." James frowned. "I still haven't met your parents. I thought…would they want to help me out?"

Piper leaned up on his elbows and gave a little shrug. "I'm a bit curious to find out. But even if they won't help, I can still support you until you find a job that makes you happy."

"Hon, I appreciate the thought…but I don't want to be your kept man, even if it's only temporary. I'm already potentially your damsel in distress what with you being a superhero and all. That's a big enough blow to my masculinity."

To his surprise, Piper actually blushed. "I…really don't think anyone would target you."

"I'd hope not. But if I wind up tied to train tracks or something, you're never hearing the end of it." He hoped that came across as teasing enough, because there was a haunted look in Piper's eyes that he didn't like. James tried to chase it away with a soft kiss. "Is there anything else, love?"

"Yeah…this is unrelated to the job thing, so please don't see it as an attempt to put you on the path to being my kept man…but would you…I mean, things are going really well right now. Do you want to move in with me?"

James' face positively lit up. He pulled Piper close to him and crushed their mouths together for an infinitely more intense kiss. Piper closed his eyes and groaned. God that cool, silky hair felt good under his hands…

"Yes, Hartley, I would _love_ to move in with you."

Piper smiled sappily at him. "Well okay then."

* * *

><p>The next couple of weeks were exceptionally busy for the happy couple.<p>

The move was accomplished with relative ease. Piper called Wally, and he yanked in a few of his other superhero buddies to do most of the work for them (James was starting to wonder why people ever complained about being a superhero's love interest; watching three gorgeous, fit young men haul his heavy furniture around while he poured them beer or lemonade depending upon preference was one of the best ways he'd ever spent a Saturday). Their possessions combined pretty easily; James didn't own a lot of furniture aside from his drafting tables and bookshelves, and he'd just donated the other stuff to charity. Piper, being rich, had nicer furniture anyway.

James didn't end up quitting his job, but knowing that he could at any time, with no financial repercussions, made it much easier to show up for work every day and keep his composure. They got absolutely slammed with projects from all the businesses who were cashing in their insurance checks off of the Kobra attacks and looking to do some funky redesigns while they rebuilt. And any moment James didn't devote to the office, he devoted to the anti-Cartwright/O'Neil campaign.

It wasn't just because of his political beliefs though. Even though he and Piper lived together, if James didn't attend all those meetings and do all those volunteer projects for the campaign, the only time he'd get to see Piper would be while one of them was asleep.

Volunteering for the campaign definitely gave Piper a sense of purpose, which was nice to see, and it kept both of them from sinking into too much despair in the face of all the bigotry they were encountering with LGBT issues being such a hot talking point in the election. It helped both of them to feel like there was something they could actually _do _about the horrid political climate, and that they wouldn't just be acted on by overwhelming political oppression come November.

Thankfully, as the election loomed they found that Cartwright wasn't running _just_ on turning the gay community into second class citizens; he was also playing off of paranoia over metahuman attacks. It explained why he had such a particularly strong support base in Keystone City. His economic policies would be disastrous for a struggling manufacturing economy, but he had specific ideas about evacuation plans, handling damages after the fact, and making prisons like Iron Heights more secure.

As the election got closer and closer, James started worrying for his boyfriend more and more. Piper looked as tired as James was; he'd given up sleeping till noon so he could be at the campaign headquarters as early as possible, and then out canvassing neighborhoods or hitting the phones. He still kept his late hours though, researching talking points and watching interviews with the relevant political figures past sunrise.

James wanted to talk to him about how worried he was getting, but they barely saw each other. It was enough in the brief moments when they weren't talking strategy to simply assure Piper that he got it, and it was okay, and that James was still elated to be his boyfriend. So at the end of another long day of campaigning, when Piper apologized yet again for being such a bad boyfriend lately, James reassured him that everything was fine, told him to grab a nap, and offered to do the grocery shopping (because otherwise they were going to be stuck with Hot Pockets for dinner for the third night running).

He snagged his keys and was halfway out the door before he remembered how gross the public restroom in the chain grocery store by their apartment was and decided to use the one in the voter education center building instead. He was just closing the door when he thought he heard some banging and screaming outside on the street.

They weren't in the best neighborhood though, so James didn't think anything of it. He finished his business, and when he was exiting the bathroom he saw Wally zip into the building with Piper trailing after him, screaming something about a bomb. James cautiously left the building, and after giving the two superheroes a few minutes to search it, when the building very much did not blow up he walked back inside.

"It was right there on my desk! Where did it…?" Piper sounded near-hysterical.

"Search me," Wally said. "What did it look like?"

"Like…like a top."

"A top?" Wally and James repeated.

Piper avoided their eyes. Still looking shaken, he left the room. Wally turned an expectant look to James. "What do you think, dude? Was the bomb threat credible or is he hallucinating?"

James didn't want to behave petulantly to the Flash, but he was definitely insulted on Piper's behalf. "I know he's overextending himself, but Hartley's not crazy."

"I'm not just speaking as his friend right now, James. This is also me being the Flash. I need to know if there really was a threat made here, or if Hartley's just predisposed to feel threatened right now. He does have a history of snapping under pressure, and he's in persecution mentality right now."

Well that was certainly true. He'd gotten into the habit of looking up cases of flagrant discrimination and hate crimes against LGBTs, and empathizing with the victims so passionately that it was clear he was taking it as if those stories weren't attached to strangers, but himself and his acquaintances.

"I…I don't know, Wally. I guess it's possible."

"What are you guys up to right now?" Wally asked.

"W-we were supposed to be going home. I need to get some groceries so we can eat a real meal tonight, but-"

"Come over to my place. You can eat with me and Linda and maybe she can be a voice of reason here."

James nodded. "I'll go talk to Hartley. We'll see you in a half hour."

"Kay."

Wally took off and James went off after his boyfriend.

* * *

><p>"So…a top?" James asked quietly.<p>

Piper stared moodily out the car window and gave his head a slight jerk. "It was there. On the table. It was a little top with a Cartwright sticker on it, and it had a recorded message, and it said there was a bomb in the building. Well, it hinted, anyway."

"I know, I'm not saying there wasn't a threat." In that he didn't sound like he believed Piper at all. Piper sucked in a harsh breath and closed his eyes. Really, why should James believe him though? Wally hadn't, and he actually dealt with improbable events and life threatening attacks on a daily basis. James dealt with threats thanks to his asshole coworkers, but they were always of a much more passive aggressive and mundane variety. "I just…before we talk to Wally and Linda, can you catch me up a little on the significance? One of your old coworkers used gimmicked tops, right?"

"Roscoe Dillon," Piper answered. "But he's dead. He died a few years ago, back when Wally's uncle was still the Flash."

"Oh, is he the one that was dating the Golden Glider?" James asked.

Piper nodded. He'd still talked to the Snarts every now and then up until the recent disaster, so James had picked a few details about them up from casual conversation.

"So wait, if you knew this Roscoe, why would he threaten you?"

"We didn't get along," Piper answered grimly. "He was always butting heads with Len. He had more ambition. He didn't want to just cause a headache for the Flash and screw with authority figures. He was power hungry in a more conventional supervillain kind of way. Would have fit in well with villains in some of the other cities, actually. More of a schemer."

"Ah."

"And…he was incredibly homophobic. Like Cartwright-"

"Hartley, this is not a conspiracy. You can't just jump to the conclusion that your old dead coworker is involved with Cartwright. No one's going to believe you."

Piper took it like a personal shot, even though he could hear the concern thick in James' voice. "You don't believe me."

James clenched his hands around the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. His lips were set in a thin line, and his brows were knit with worry. "I think something scared the heck out of you just now, but I don't know for sure what it was. I don't think you do either. I'm also not sure you're functioning at your most level-headed right now, hon."

"Mm hm." Piper turned back towards the window, and didn't say anything else. He wished he could, because by the time James pulled into Wally's driveway he looked like he wanted to curl into a fetal position, but Piper knew that if he opened his mouth he'd only make things worse, and he still had to go inside and get chewed out by some well-meaning friends.

* * *

><p>It didn't start out as bad as it might have. Wally completely dismissed Piper's story based on his exhaustion, and James backed him in a less tactless, more compassionate manner. Then Linda told them to shut up so they could watch the latest Cartwright speech for work.<p>

Maybe he was overtired, because the damned speech sounded like Rogue-speak from the good old days. Piper recalled being a reckless, polka-dot clad buffoon, hanging out with a bunch of tipsy older men in similar ridiculous costumes, and everyone trying to outdo each other with lamer puns about their gimmicks the more soused they got (of course, he and James Jesse only drank ginger ale, but they had an appreciation for campy humor that made them game for bad jokes even while sober). Piper wasn't sure how it could have happened, he only knew that Cartwright _sounded_ like Roscoe Dillon.

Wally immediately started trashing Cartwright after the speech, but he also went right back to dismissing the fact that Piper had received a bomb threat from the Top, and that he was most definitely awake and in his right mind when he'd gotten it. Wally assumed Piper was just spooked about the possibility of a bigoted homophobe taking office. "This guy _could_ introduce legislation to make your life tougher, but Piper…he's _not_ the Top."

"'Spin on society?'" Piper quoted, jumping to his feet. "'Turning us around?'" Wally looked at him blankly.

Maybe the guys didn't do the gimmick puns anymore (they had always gotten hilarious, long suffering responses from Allen back in the day).

James looked at him almost pleadingly. "Think. Isn't it possible that your subconscious was working overtime? That you snoozed and dreamt of Cartwright and tops and persecution…and projected onto this bozo because you're so threatened by him?"

"You're not getting it. It happened. He threatened me and others like me. Dillon's not just a criminal. He's a _monster_."

Wally snorted and rolled his eyes. "He spun tops."

Said the man that hadn't actually fought him. There had been a point in Piper's life when he'd been afraid of Roscoe. The man's untimely death had been a relief for him. "Who knows what he could do with presidential power?"

Wally tried again. "He _died_."

"Then he came back to life."

"All right, in _my_ world, that's not as crazy as it sounds," Wally said, and Piper held out the hope that he'd finally gotten through to one of them. "But try telling that to voters." And there went that.

"Linda, do an expose! You can-"

Linda held her hands up. "Be a laughing stock. Piper, I'm with them."

He hadn't expected that. Good, smart, liberally biased Linda (though she was claiming to be apolitical during the election), she _always_ backed him up when Wally said something stupid, oversimplified, or insensitive. He stared first at Linda, then James, who usually found a way to support him even when he didn't agree with him, and then at Wally, who'd helped him so much so far…found faith in him even when he didn't always have faith in himself.

Three of the most important people in his life really thought he was delusional.

"Great. Good to know who your friends are," Piper muttered darkly. He grabbed his coat and started for the door. "I guess not all people are worth protecting, huh?"

"Hey!" Wally yelled. "Cheap shot!"

"Truth hurts. But then, you don't recognize the truth. I will do whatever it takes to keep Dillon from hurting us."

James took a few steps towards him. "Hart, don't do anything foolish-"

"_Whatever it takes_," Piper repeated, before slamming the door on him.

* * *

><p>As Piper left without his boyfriend, Linda had to give James a ride back to their apartment. They spent most of the trip in silence. She could see how worried he was, but she didn't want to push him to talk if he needed the time to steel himself up for another confrontation with Hartley.<p>

Then, all of a sudden, he lurched forward and buried his head in his hands. "James, are you okay?"

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry, I don't mean to be freaking out like this in front of you-"

"Sweetie, it's fine. We're friends. This is what I'm here for."

His voice shook. "You don't think…he's going to have another mental breakdown, do you? Should I ca-call the hospital on him?"

Oh hell. She hadn't thought of that.

Linda pulled up in front of their place, unbuckled, then leaned over and gave him a hug. "James, it's too early to make that kind of call. Let's just keep an eye on him and take it one day at a time, okay? The election's almost here. This'll all end soon."

"Y-you're right. You're right. I'll help him get through this…and then I won't have to lose him to that damn hospital. Okay. Okay, I can do this." He gave her a tight squeeze, pulled back, and rubbed at his eyes. "I can do this."

But when he went inside, the apartment was empty.

* * *

><p>Piper was definitely irritated with his boyfriend, but he still felt a little bad about yelling at him and running off to his ex-boyfriend's house. So bad, in fact, that he was severely tempted to lie about it, and the fear that that kicked up made him promise himself he'd tell James all about his thoroughly non-romantic meeting with the Trickster as soon as he got home.<p>

It was incredibly irritating that James didn't believe him, but the poor guy was motivated by all the right reasons. He cared about Piper. He was worried. Piper wouldn't increase his obvious insecurities about James Jesse more than he had to, but he did need to meet with at least one friend he could depend on that night.

Unfortunately, he was treated to more of the same bullshit. "Dillon's dead, Piper."

"Don't make me go through that again, Trickster," Piper returned coldly.

"Piper, Dillon was the _least_ of Flash's Rogues gallery…and in a group with the Rainbow Raider, that's saying a lot. I know you want me to validate your suspicions, but I can't. The Rogues are history. You and I, we're two of the last…and we've gone legit."

Piper quirked an eyebrow. The last time they'd talked about this, James had still been on the fence. Well that was interesting.

"All that's left of any of them is their gimmicky weapons," James continued. "And I have them as souvenirs."

"How'd you swing that?" Piper asked.

James grinned that familiar cocksure grin. "Tricked my way into their wills! I'm in yours too, by the way! I figure if I could hold onto the cold-guns and weather wands, that keeps 'em off the streets. They're safe with me…"

Piper shrugged. "Better off than in the Flash Museum. Everyone raids that thing like a spare armory. So even you think I'm nuts?"

"Pookie, this may hurt your feelings, but I've seen you nuts. You're not there yet, but you're getting close. C'mon Hart, even you with your incredible levels of zealousness and denial must have noticed how tightly wound you're getting. You've done your duty." James set the pack of cards he'd been idly shuffling back on his coffee table and picked up a yo-yo to play with instead. "I think you should borrow Mummy and Daddy's private jet, take your wiener architect, and treat yourselves to a nice date."

"You know, you did a much better job reassuring me about Roscoe's threats before."

James' smile turned hard, and the teasing spark left his eyes. "We were sleeping together last time, pookie. I had more of an investment. If you want cuddles and reassurances, you're talking to the wrong James."

After such a stressful day, his emotional armor was completely gone, and he was sure the raw hurt was showing on his face. "I thought you wanted to be friends. Are my feelings only a concern if we're involved?"

"Your feelings are a little more high maintenance than most people's, Piper, and I just don't have the strength to lend you if all I'm getting out of this is friendship. Now, when you're ready to dump your dweeb, then you'll get my A-game."

For the second time in under an hour, Piper grabbed his coat and stormed out of a friend's home.


	6. Chapter 6

****_A/N: The conclusion of the Presidential Race, Flash #121: Down to the Wire, is heavily referenced in this chapter. Same creative team as the first part.  
><em>

**Chapter Six**

Piper didn't get home until nearly three in the morning. He was struggling with bags of supplies when he did, and so initially didn't notice the lump of blankets on the living room sofa.

He felt like an ass when he finally did see James curled up on the couch (which was much too small to sleep him comfortably; he was going to have a sore neck all day). Piper glanced guiltily at the bags he was holding. He _needed_ to get back to work, but…James had clearly been waiting up for him.

He brought his things to the workshop, kicked off his sneakers, then crept back into the living room. He crouched down in front of the sofa and brushed his fingers against James' cheek. Ever the light sleeper, James' lovely eyes fluttered open.

"Hartley…when did you get back?" he whispered in a scratchy voice, heavy from sleep.

"Just now. C'mon, you should be in bed."

"I was worried about you." The concern had given way to relief though, and James, though groggy and disoriented, smiled while they walked upstairs and down the hall to the bedroom. He dropped onto his side of the mattress and curled towards Piper's side expectantly.

Piper spread the blanket over his boyfriend, caressed his face, then got up off the bed and started for the door.

"Hart?" James sat up, looking worried and even vulnerable in his sleepy confusion. "Where are you going?"

Piper sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "To my workshop. I've got some things to prepare before Cartwright's rally this morning."

"But…it's three am, and you've been out all night and…and you should sleep."

"There isn't time. I've got to get this project done."

"Hartley!" James climbed out of bed, tripping over the tangled bedding as he did so. He looked terrified. "Please, I'm begging you, just come to bed. I've been up most of the night scared out of my wits for you, and I won't be able to sleep again if you leave right now. Please, please just take some time to relax and calm down. After a few hours of sleep, maybe this Cartwright thing won't look so dire."

Piper closed the remaining distance between them and put his hands on James' shoulders, hoping to reassure him. He captured the terrified brown gaze with his own calm blue one, firm in his convictions. "Jay, don't worry about me. Please, believe me, I know what I'm doing. If I had time, I would stop and take a nap, but I don't. Cartwright's only going to be in the area for a few days, so if I don't want to stalk him to Ohio then I've got to expose him while he's still in Kansas."

To his surprise, James started crying. It wasn't noisy or dramatic, like he was trying to guilt Piper into anything, but the silent tears tracking down his face disconcerted Piper nonetheless. "Th-there's nothing to expose. Hartley, please, he's just an asshole, not a dead supervillain." James' lip started trembling, and then he seized Piper in a hug and buried his face in Piper's shoulder. "Please, please let this go! Just stay in with me, stay with me, and let this thing go!"

"James-"

"I wish I'd never introduced you to that damn campaign. Hartley, no one else sees this the way you do. Isn't that telling you something?"

Piper stared at the sobbing wreck in his arms in some shock, and reflected that he'd been neighbors with James during his big breakdown. James may not have been his boyfriend at the time, but he'd seen Piper muttering to himself in the halls, sneaking off to his bases in the middle of the night, and sacrificing sleep for a different all-consuming project. He finally put it together. His friends didn't think he was just overtired and having weird exhaustion day dreams; they thought he was on the path back to Breedmore.

Insulted beyond words, Piper shoved James away and stalked to his workroom to grab his things, ignoring James' pleading all the while. He left James sobbing in the front hall when he closed the front door with a loud bang.

He'd just have to finish working on his new gear at one of his old haunts instead.

* * *

><p>Piper sat in his car for a precious twenty minutes, watching passersby on the sidewalk like a hawk. He hadn't been to this particular part of Central in ages, and if his friends were questioning his sanity he was definitely on guard against being seen where he had to go.<p>

Then again, with so many of the old crew dead, there really weren't that many people likely to be idling around this part of town who would recognize him. What a depressing thought.

He finally got out of the car and knocked on the door to Gambi's shop. It wasn't supposed to open for another few hours, but Piper spied a familiar gaze through the tiny pane in the top of the door, and a moment later Paul Gambi threw the door open and wrapped Piper in an enthusiastic hug. "Hartley, my boy! It's been far too long. Come inside, come inside."

"Hello, Paul. Thanks for taking my order on such short notice," Piper muttered, a bit embarrassed by the flamboyant greeting. He walked inside, shrugged out of his coat, and hung it on a peg on the wall. For some of his clientele, Gambi's shop was like a second home and he expected those intimates to treat it as such.

Gambi locked the door behind them and shooed Piper into a back room, where the tailor did work on his most lucrative customers' projects.

The room was dismally empty compared to the last time Piper had seen it. In the good old days, there had been mannequins lined up against the back wall, modeling flame repellant suits, thermal parkas, and lime green weather proofed jump suits, among other eye catching looks. There were a couple of mannequins set up; one with god awful eyesore bright vertically striped pants, and another with a black and rainbow striped tunic. The shelves around the room used to be crowded with supplies and order boxes waiting to be picked up. Piper's was the only finished order there, and it sat alone on a long table that looked incredibly lonely without the clutter of half-finished Rogue apparel.

"I was surprised by the measurements you sent me, Hartley. You used to be such a skinny little thing. Oh, not that it didn't work for you. The old polka-dotted tunic was incredibly flattering for such a slender build. Anyway, I can see why you'd want a new costume now." Gambi patted the box, an affectionate smile lighting his face. "I think you'll like this one. It's quite different from the polka dots, and I'm positive it'll suit your new figure. If I may say so, well done, by the way. Bravo."

Piper felt his face color. Gambi was a little more open with Piper than he ever had been with the other Rogues (he couldn't believe no one else had noticed the sassy tailor was gay!), and generally it was fine. Paul was an adorable older man who sometimes liked to live vicariously through the younger gay activist.

Piper still wished Gambi wouldn't check him out though. No matter how innocent the flirting was, it was still uncomfortable coming from someone who'd essentially groped him with measuring tape while he stood on a well-lit stool in his undies. Multiple times.

It was an excellent thing for Paul that the other Rogues assumed everyone was straight until proven gay.

"This new costume," Piper said slowly. "It's not as…um, playful as the old one, right?"

"You can just say it, Hartley. The old one was silly," Gambi said. "At the time I was clothing a rebellious young soul who wanted to mislead people about his capabilities. This new one is a bit more conventional for superheroics. It should help you get taken seriously by your new colleagues."

"Thanks, Paul." Piper took the box and lifted the lid. He quirked an eyebrow, replaced the lid, and looked up at his old friend. "Were those garters?"

"No! Just part of the design. You said you didn't want polka dots, so I worked something up with lines instead."

"Uh huh. Well, guess I'd better try it on."

* * *

><p>James seriously considered just adding cream and sugar to the coffee pot and dispensing with the mug altogether (if he thought he could gulp around the spout without spilling burning hot coffee down his chest he would have). He'd exhausted himself all week, then he'd fought with his boyfriend, and now he had no idea where Piper was; he just knew the man was alone and increasingly unstable. So there was going to be <em>a lot<em> of coffee in his future.

The apartment was uncharacteristically silent, owing to Piper's absence, so even though he was downstairs in the kitchen James was able to hear someone banging on the bedroom window. Confused, he went upstairs to check it out.

The Trickster was hovering outside, looking almost normal for once despite his flying boots (and the fact that he was treating a window like a door). He wasn't wearing any other pieces of his costume though, just tight jeans and a loud orange shirt.

James was tempted to lock the window, but Jesse might have news about Piper…he opened the window and let his rival in.

Trickster glanced around the room and scowled at James. "You're living together now?! Since when?!"

"It's been a few weeks," James answered, trying to keep the smugness from his tone. It's not like they'd been great weeks; certainly nothing to brag about.

"So where's Piper?" James Jesse asked.

James frowned. "I was hoping you might know."

"Didn't he come home last night?"

"He took off again. He said he needed to get ready for Cartwright's rally-"

"And you let him go?"

James narrowed his eyes in a glare. "Surely _you_ must know how Hartley gets when he's intent on one of his projects. Was I supposed to hogtie him?"

"No, but you could have called the Flash. Shit…he came by my place yesterday too. He seemed pissy, so I busted his chops a little, and then the way he left…"

To James' annoyance and further worry, the Trickster looked just as concerned as he felt. "This is what happened last time, isn't it?"

Trickster didn't answer immediately. He kicked his shoes back on and started pacing above the carpet. "Last time…last time he wanted to be alone. He shut me out. This time he's reaching out to us. But the paranoia, the passion…I dunno. That's Piper on a normal day too."

James breathed a sigh of relief. "So he's not going crazy?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you think he's right about the Top?"

He considered. "He could be, but I doubt it. Roscoe definitely didn't like Piper while he was alive, but he didn't care all that much about him either. If he got res'd, I think he'd have better things to do than screw with Piper. He was a schemer."

"Hartley mentioned that. Wouldn't…wouldn't a bid for the presidency be in line with that?"

Trickster shrugged. "I'm a closeted bisexual. I tried not to get too chummy with the guy who violently railed against homosexuality."

"Well…I think I'm going to head down to the rally. I doubt Hartley's coming home before that."

To his surprise, James Jesse asked to tag along in a way that was mostly even polite. Even though he was the last man James wanted to spend time with, he agreed. He didn't like the Trickster, or his blatantly disrespectful attitude about James and Piper's relationship, but the guy might come in handy.

Besides, James remembered how much it sucked to watch someone you cared about fall apart from a distance.

* * *

><p>"Do you see him?" James asked anxiously.<p>

James Jesse shook his head. "Too bad Piper's not a racial minority. He'd stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd like this."

"I know. I've never seen so many old, white homophobes gathered in one place before. Keep your eyes trained for an artsy red ponytail then."

"Will do."

They continued scanning the crowd, hoping to spot Piper before he embarrassed himself with whatever master plan he'd managed to cook up. Unfortunately, the two Jameses were only looking at the spectators around Cartwright and O'Neill. Neither of them were watching the roofs.

"People of Keystone! Know the truth!" Piper's amplified voice reached them from the top of a nearby building. The two Jameses turned in that direction and gaped at their mutual acquaintance, who was decked out in skintight green spandex, clutching a terrifying looking sonic gun, while his long ponytail waved in the breeze.

"Damn, that's hot," Trickster murmured.

James clutched at his arm, wide eyed with worry, while Piper continued to warn the citizens of Keystone about Cartwright's supposed dual identity. "You have to stop him!" James yelped. "Turn your flying shoes on and get up there!"

"He's already spilled his crazy everywhere. I think any intervention of mine would be moot at this point."

Then Piper blew up a barrel with his sound gun. The terrified crowed started to disperse, shouting their terror about the psychopath in green, and the Trickster's smile wavered. "Alright, maybe he was keeping some of the crazy in."

"So you're-"

"Yeah, on my way." He wrenched his arm out of James' terrified grip, turned his shoes on, and started running towards the rooftop.

Flash beat him there easily. James couldn't hear what they were saying, but he saw Piper accidentally knock the kid off the building, and then dive after him and pull him up onto the roof. Good, so Piper only looked kill-happy by accident.

James was seized with a sudden and vivid recollection of what Piper had looked like after he'd honest to God tried to murder Pinchot. Clearly the wiener's fears about Piper's mental health had gotten to James more than he'd realized. This wasn't like that.

Piper was being stupid, not crazy.

While James was distracted, the Keystone PD got Piper in cuffs and led him from the roof.

"That was fast," James muttered. He hovered beside the building for a few minutes, wondering what to do next. The Flash had already traded a few words with Cartwright and taken off, and the remnants of the rally were going their separate ways as well.

His first instinct was to get ready to spring Piper from jail, but that was a foolish impulse.

James headed back for his own house instead. He'd wait, give Wally a call for an update, and figure out where to go from there. In the meantime, he still needed to figure out who'd ripped off his storage and stolen all his old Rogues gear.

* * *

><p>Piper was sitting on the bunk in his cell with his head in his hands, feeling like a prize idiot, when he thought he heard something odd; a voice from somewhere on the street outside, which would have been impossible to hear without his implants. It wasn't the voice that got his attention though; the voice itself wasn't familiar. It was the inflection that gave him pause, and the distinctive behavior of arrogantly talking to an imaginary audience.<p>

Before he could puzzle it out the wall behind him exploded and he fell to the floor in an unconscious heap.

When Piper woke up he was lying prone on a dirty mattress with his hands bound behind his back. He quickly took stock of the situation; when he'd been arrested he'd been searched for weapons, and even had harmless accessories from his new costume removed.

He was disgustingly vulnerable.

"Ah, you're awake. Good," the familiarly inflected voice spoke up. The man was standing with his back to Piper, digging through a box. "We have some serious spin doctoring to do, don't we, my old Roguish pal?" Then he turned around and Piper found himself face to face with Thomas O'Neill.

"O'Neill? But…but…Cartwright is-"

"A dupe," the young senator said with a sneer. "As are _you_. You all think what I want you to. What better path to the presidency?"

"Roscoe…" Piper said shakily. "That _is_ you, isn't it? I knew it! Wait…president? But you're on the ticket as vice-"

"True enough…and long enough to get Cartwright elected. I'm counting on him becoming president-elect for about five minutes until I reluctantly step forward and assume the job…after he's assassinated by the Pied Piper."

Like that would ever fucking happen. He really wanted to hear how Roscoe planned on framing him for that. "Weren't _you_ dead?" he snapped.

"Oh, I suppose so. For awhile. I was, in fact, a captive of hell itself until I bargained my way out and into the body of dying senator Thomas O'Neill. It's a long story. My immediate plan was to run for chief executive myself, but guess what?"

"You weren't smart enough." It was a petty jab, but it was also the perfect way to press the buttons of an insecure pseudo-intellectual like Dillon.

"Let's just say that the streets of Brooklyn didn't educate Roscoe Dillon well enough to maneuver the presidency," Roscoe said in a low, frighteningly angry voice. He was holding one of Piper's sound guns.

Maybe he should have resisted the temptation.

"But I was clever enough to ally myself with a sure thing. Cartwright does the work, and once he's dead…" Roscoe fired on a piece of furniture and blew it spectacularly to pieces. Piper wasn't able to shield himself from the flying debris very well, and he wound up with a few stinging cuts on his exposed face. "I move right where I belong…to the top."

"If I frame myself for your crime, and forget that! I won't help you kill anyone!" Piper yelled.

Roscoe laughed. "No, of course not. But the world at large will never believe that you're not responsible once they see you kill Jake Cartwright right in the middle of his acceptance speech!"

Piper felt his insides go cold when he saw Dillon take a familiar looking gadget out of the pocket of his trench coat. It was one of Sam's mirrors.

Dillon was enveloped in a flash of light, and when the white spots cleared from Piper's vision he was looking at a perfect copy of himself.

Whatever Paul said, the damn white lines looked like garters on the green spandex.

"Voila," Roscoe said smugly.

"Wh-what…?" How the hell had he gotten his hands on Sam's gear? Sam didn't even like Roscoe.

"A little something from the Mirror Master collection," Roscoe said arrogantly, as though Piper couldn't figure that out on his own. "It came with all the other Rogue weapons I looted from Trickster's stash. Right before I raided your lab for the perfect-and most incriminating-sonic weapon. This will do beautifully. I always said you were a genius, Hartley-boy. Not the type I'd let my brother date, but a genius just the same."

"N-no! You can't get away with this!"

"But I already have. You took my bait and very cooperatively set yourself up for a big fall. Thanks so much. I'm off. Relax. Get some sleep while you can. I'll be back to let you loose afterward, you stinking murderer." He started cheerfully humming hail to the chief under his breath as he left.

As soon as Roscoe was gone, Piper threw everything he had into getting his hands free. He could tell he'd been handcuffed, but they didn't feel like the ones the Central or Keystone PD used (sadly, Piper was familiar enough with those ones to know how to easily slip them). He contorted so that he could get his arms in front of him and took a look at the cuffs.

They'd probably come from James' personal armory, judging by appearance. They were blue and yellow striped. Piper sat up on his knees and held his wrists to his eyes, trying to get a better look at them, though knowing James' cleverness in his tinkering there probably weren't any easily exploitable structural weaknesses.

Then he overbalanced and fell on the floor with a loud thud. "Fucking dammit!"

"Piper? Is that you?"

"James?!" Piper started crawling towards the door. "James, I'm up here!"

"I hear you!" And a moment later his ex burst through the doorway, wearing an expression of concern that quickly gave way to laughter.

Piper realized what he must have looked like, on his elbows and knees on the floor in front of James with his bangs spilling into his face, wearing handcuffs in James' colors. "Will you just shut up and get these off of me?"

James stopped laughing, but he was wearing a dangerous smirk. His eyes raked Piper over, and he felt his face go even redder in response. "Against every personal inclination, sure. By the way, nice outfit."

"I said _shut up_."

"Fine, you can stay where you are if you want to be like that."

"Dammit James, will you just help me? I promise, I'm humiliated enough already. Roscoe played me for a sap and he's on his way to murder Cartwright disguised as me. And it's your fucking fault he's got the disguise!"

James crouched down next to Piper and uncuffed him. "Yeah, I noticed my stash had gone missing and tracked the thief here. So it's really Roscoe? You talked to him?"

"I did."

"He didn't…he didn't hurt you or anything, right?"

Piper looked up from rubbing his sore wrists and regarded James with some surprise. "N-no. Just my dignity."

James ran a hand through his hair, looking embarrassed. "Uh…while I'm still making an ass of myself by exposing feelings you're dead set against returning…I'm sorry I was such a dick the other night. I guess I'm having a harder time being 'just friends' with you than I thought."

"James…" This was so not the time or place for this discussion. If Roscoe carried off his plot, it wouldn't matter which James Piper dated, because there would be a bulletproof window and a cheap phone separating him from them.

James grasped Piper's hand, and Piper found himself entranced by those lovely blue eyes. More emotions than he could count flitted across James' face. Then he cupped Piper's face with his hand and leaned in for a quick, tender kiss.

Piper jerked away and climbed to his feet. "Dammit, James, I'm not in love with you anymore! Now cut it out. We have to go stop Roscoe."

For barely a second James stared up at him like a kicked puppy. Then his expression iced over. "Sorry, I can't be your sidekick for this one." He gave himself a little shake, then turned on his airwalkers and charged out an open window.

Piper stared after him for a moment, feeling a pang of regret. Which was ridiculous, and selfish. He loved _his_ James. And really, even if he didn't, there were more important things going on. Without giving him time to dwell on the awkward encounter, he raced out of the hideout to go rescue Jacob Cartwright.

* * *

><p>"So this is why people hate being a superhero's love interest," James mumbled to himself. He was alone in the apartment, sitting on the couch and feeling miserable.<p>

After Hartley's arrest he'd spent some time talking to Linda, and try as she might to cheer him up, it was beyond even her amazing capabilities. James had gone home, tried to get an update from the news, and ended up throwing things at the TV in anger before switching it off. Now that the taint of scandal had attached itself to Hartley, the news had forgotten about all the times he'd sacrificed his personal safety in recent years, and they were speculating the most awful things about him.

And then he'd been kidnapped from his cell.

James called Linda in a blind panic, and was assured that she and Wally would be in touch as soon as they found anything out. But so far the only person he'd heard from was Zach, who'd left a smug voicemail suggesting James reevaluate his life choices in light of what his supervillain boyfriend had been up to.

James had never felt more miserable in his life.

Then he heard a key turning in the lock. James jumped to his feet and ran for the front door.

There was Piper, still wearing his new costume (though it was now in rough shape, having been broken in by a miserable day in the life of a superhero), and looking like he was ready to keel over where he stood.

James wasn't sure how he'd gotten there, if it was okay that he was there, but he didn't care. Relief washed through him, and he darted forward to embrace his lover. Piper hugged him back, letting out a shaky breath. They both tried to speak, but nothing close to intelligible came from either man, so they settled for hungry kisses and desperate touches instead.

Eventually one of them thought to kick the door closed.

* * *

><p>Sometime later, the couple was lying in bed facing each other, James lovingly playing with Piper's hair, taking in all the little cuts on the side of his face, eyes occasionally darting down to look at the bruises on his torso. Piper tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes kept drooping shut.<p>

"I'm the worst boyfriend ever," he finally whispered in a scratchy voice.

"You are not. I am. I should have believed you."

Piper laughed. "That wouldn't have been supporting me, Jay. That would have been enabling my self-destructive, grand-standing idiocy. I'm really sorry."

"Don't be. It all worked itself out. And now you're back with me where you belong." James leaned in for a tender kiss, and they were both finally smiling when he fell back against his own pillow. "Go to sleep, Hart. You need it."

Piper traced his fingers over James' bare hip, eyes shining with fondness. "You're so patient with me. I promise, someday I'll start giving you what you deserve."

"You already are. Now for real, sleep."

"Alright." Piper closed his eyes, a small smile on his lips.

James remained awake for some time, just staring at his lover, relieved to have him back. He tenderly brushed some soft red hair out of Piper's face and placed a kiss on his temple. Piper, more asleep than awake, made a groggy noise in his throat and leaned towards James.

"Mm…love you JJ," he whispered before drifting off entirely.

James shot up in bed and gaped at the slumbering superhero.

"My initials aren't JJ."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Piper couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that James was mad at him for something.

He woke up alone the next morning, which wasn't entirely unusual, but it was still rare. Piper was almost always in bed when James left for work, though he usually woke up briefly when his boyfriend kissed him goodbye. He only slept through it when he was so exhausted as to be rendered dead to the world. Which he had been…but considering how emotional they'd gotten the night before he'd expected James to wake him up for the goodbye kiss.

He shook it off, went into the bathroom to spray more disinfectant on his lacerations, got dressed, and then went downstairs to see what leftovers he was going to have for breakfast. There weren't any.

"Okay…" Piper mumbled, staring at the empty shelf that usually contained a plastic container of food for him. "I can cook for myself. Um…shit, I think I took the last frozen dinner when I was working on my gear the other night. Shit. Okay, I'll go out for breakfast."

Piper's breakfast was about the same time as James' lunch, so he decided to give his boyfriend a call and see if he wanted to meet up at that café by his work. Piper's call went to voicemail.

'He must still be mad at me over the Cartwright thing,' Piper realized. He hadn't seemed it the night before, but they hadn't really talked either. They'd just sort of fallen into each other in absolute relief that the mess was over and that Piper wasn't going back to jail (or the nuthouse).

Piper was actually sitting on a bench outside James' building before he realized that charging into the office and confronting James in front of all his coworkers was going to make things worse, not better. He stayed on the bench though, wishing he'd thought to bring a book with him or something. He still might be able to catch James when he ventured outside for lunch.

As if on cue, James rounded the corner. His face fell when he saw Piper waiting for him, but he worked a shy smile into place before he approached him. "Hey…what are you doing here?"

Piper held up his phone. "Wondering why you're ignoring my calls. Are you mad at me?"

"No, not…um. I'm not mad," he said. He even looked like he believed it, which was encouraging.

Piper stood up and closed the space between them. "Alright, you're not mad, but you're clearly upset. So what's wrong?" He knew he wasn't being paranoid again; James had barely met his eyes, and that wasn't like him. Piper grasped his hand and gave it a firm squeeze. "You're okay, right? I don't want to bother you while you're at work. We can talk later. Just…if there's something I need to know, you can just tell me. I know I made a royal mess of things the past couple of days and that you have every right to resent me over that-"

"Hartley, will you just stop? It's not the superhero shit, okay?" James snapped. "That's never been an issue. I knew all about that before I asked you out."

Piper was a little taken aback. He couldn't remember ever hearing the timid architect raise his voice before. "So what's…?"

"You really want to know? Because I was just going to compartmentalize this until I could process it. You didn't do it on purpose, after all. I can just let it go."

"What? What did I do?" Piper asked.

James wrenched his hand out of Piper's and took a step back. "You called me JJ."

Piper shook his head. "Why would I do that? James, I have no memory of-"

"It was last night, right before you fell asleep. We were in bed together, and you…you mistook me for your ex-boyfriend." He looked down at his nervously wringing hands and then met Piper's gaze with a mean-spirited expression Piper had yet to see from the gentle young man. "Do you mind if I ask which James you were thinking of when we were having sex?"

It was Piper's turn to take a dazed step back. "You were hearing things. I wouldn't-I'm _over_ him. I love you."

"Really." James didn't sound like he believed him. "I need to go. I'm sorry, Hartley. I'll see you later."

He started to walk away, but Piper ran over and grabbed him by the shoulders. "James, really, I love you. You're the one that I want to be with, I promise."

"I want to believe that so badly…" James whispered. He gave himself a little shake. "I can't do this here. I've still got-look, I'll see you later. We'll talk later."

Piper dazedly nodded, turned on his heel, and headed back to their apartment.

* * *

><p>Piper was sitting on the living room floor with his back resting against the couch when James got out of work. He'd been looking over the damage to his new costume (minimal; he could probably fix it himself without sending it back to Gambi), but he set it aside, closed his eyes, and listened to his lover's movements. James locked the door behind him, reset their alarm system, shrugged out of his coat and kicked off his shoes, and then hesitated by the doorway.<p>

"I can hear you, you know."

"I know," James answered.

"So why don't you just come in? We can get this discussion over with."

"Hartley…"

Piper opened his eyes, willing himself to keep calm. James was standing in front of him, and he was actually holding a bouquet of flowers. Startled, Piper let out a little laugh.

James' cheeks colored. "I felt bad about snapping at you. It seemed like a nice gesture, if nothing else."

"Thanks." Piper accepted the flowers and turned them over in his hands a few times, not really sure what to do with them. "No one's ever given me flowers before. James, you didn't have to do this. I was in the wrong."

"You were mostly asleep, you'd had a hellish day, and your emotions went all over the place. I shouldn't be mad at you. I know I shouldn't be mad." James sat down across from him. "And I'm not, really…it's just…"

"I'm sorry I hurt you." Piper leaned over and squeezed his hand.

"Do you…do you still think of him? I know you guys are friends, but…he wants to get back with you. I don't want to be jealous and clingy, but I know he'd steal you away with half an excuse if he got the chance. I don't think I'm being ridiculous by being uncomfortable with your friendship."

Piper nodded. James' feelings were more than valid. "I don't want to be with him anymore. I'm so happy with you, James. I swear. It's just…I don't want him out of my life entirely either though. I still care about him. I'd never want to start a relationship with him again, but…I'd miss him."

James took a shaky breath. "I don't want you to have to choose between us, but this is-Hartley, I don't like feeling this way. Could you talk to him? Tell him to back off?"

"I've tried-"

"You haven't tried very hard."

Again, valid. Piper frowned and dropped James' gaze. "You're right. I'll talk to him, I promise."

"Thanks." James leaned in for a quick kiss, and things felt a bit more normal for it. They were still holding hands, and there was a bouquet of flowers sitting on Piper's lap, laid out over his costume top. Looking at the two disparate items, he had to admit he was shocked that the costume wasn't the source of conflict in his relationship (then again, if his tension filled friendship with Tricks hadn't been commanding so much attention, maybe it would have been more grating to James than it was).

James cooked a simple dinner for them while Piper finished working on his costume. Piper could tell that something else was on James' mind while they ate together, but he didn't want to pry. Things still felt a bit tenuous between them, and Piper didn't want to make James uncomfortable.

He was washing dishes when James finally brought it up on his own accord. "So, um…remember my friend who started up the anti-Cartwright campaign?"

"Jess Brooks?" Piper asked. "Yeah, I remember him. He'd been talking to me about a charity project he thought I might want to get involved with after the election was over. Did he mention something to you?"

"Not about the charity, but um…do you remember his boyfriend, Brian?"

Piper thought back on the group he'd been working with during the campaign, but he couldn't remember being introduced to Jesse's boyfriend. "No, I don't think I met Brian."

"Oh. Well Brian's a nice guy. Um…he's actually from Boston. He was just in Central for school."

"Oh."

"So…so they're moving to Boston now. They're getting married."

Piper turned the water off and dried his hands on a dishtowel. He looked up at James and tried to read his expression, but he was staring at the ground. "Good for them," Piper said carefully, testing the waters. "Is he going to invite you to the wedding?"

"Maybe. I dunno. They're still figuring out the details."

"You know, I remember when the Goodridge decision went through. Quite a few of my friends packed up and moved to Massachusetts. I figured it was more important to stay here and fight for equality in my home." He'd also made that call when he hadn't been involved with someone he would want to marry.

James nodded, still not meeting his eye. "I can see that. It's definitely important. But you know, you can fight for equality from wherever. I was just thinking…it might not be so bad to live somewhere where it wasn't so hard to be gay."

"So are you saying you want to move to Boston?" Piper asked, careful to keep his tone quiet and respectful, though he was getting uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

"No. But I'm from Connecticut. We have marriage equality in Connecticut. And…um…you know how you said I should look into finding another job, since my office sucks? There are a ton of places hiring in my old town. I could…it wouldn't be so hard to move. Plus Connecticut has anti-discrimination laws."

"Is that what you really want?" Piper asked. He walked over to James and tilted his face up, so that they were looking at each other. He stroked James' bangs back tenderly and did his best to keep his gaze, though James kept trying to look nervously away. "Do you want to move back to your hometown and…and marry me?"

James chewed his lip and nodded.

Piper smiled. "That sounds lovely, but it's a pretty big change. Is it okay if I take some time to think about it? I've never even been to Connecticut before."

James' eyes widened. "Do you mean it? I mean, I mean I do want to do all that, but it feels like a really selfish thing to want, and I'm okay with it if you don't, and I mean it's _a lot_ to ask-"

Piper cut him off with a kiss. "James, love, it's _definitely_ worth thinking about. And it's not selfish. I want to spend my life with you too, you know."

"What about your work? The superhero stuff? Could you do it from Connecticut?"

"I managed from New York. I'll talk to Wally though. Even with his superspeed, I probably wouldn't be working with him as actively from out of state." Piper sighed. If they went through with this, he hoped their decision wouldn't hurt his friendship with Wally.

James squeezed his hand, an adorably hopeful look on his face. "We don't have to, just so we're clear. This isn't ultimatum time. I don't want you to do this if it's going to make you miserable."

"I know," Piper said softly. "Let's sleep on it, okay?"

James nodded. "Okay."

* * *

><p>The next couples dinner with Wally and Linda went the way they usually did. Wally and Piper each got a few bites into their dinners (Wally would have gotten in more, but Linda had started insisting he eat at normal speed when meals were also serving a social function) before they were called out to bust up a disturbance downtown. Linda cleared away her dishes and replaced them with her laptop and phone, ready to report on whatever mischief Wally and Piper were breaking up, while James continued poking at his food.<p>

"Checkbook all balanced?" Linda joked.

James smirked. "Don't let it stop you from working. I can find some way to entertain myself."

"There's no need for that…yet, anyway." Linda's phone beeped, distracting her for a moment. "It's Wally. Just some thugs going after a jeweler's. I bet Hartley's disillusioning them about the worth of diamonds once you take De Beers monopoly and markup out of the equation as we speak."

James laughed. "I kind of wish I was there to see it."

"I'm glad this one's a quickie. Wally and I were supposed to talk to you guys about something."

"Really?" James asked, intrigued. "We were supposed to talk to you about something too."

"Oh good. That's not terribly foreboding, is it?" Linda sighed. "Well, ETA is ten minutes."

"Wow. That seems a little quick, even for idiot jewel thieves."

"Mm."

James cleared his dishes away, returned to the table, and cracked open the copy of Ulysses he was trying to chew through (third time's the charm!), and Linda stared expectantly at her phone, tapping her manicured fingernail against the table. James only got in a paragraph before she cracked.

"So what did you need to talk about?" she asked. James looked up at her with an amused glint in his eyes. "Well…sorry. But reporters are curious. I know they only said ten minutes…but Wally's conception of time is all over the place."

"Yeah, it could take seven minutes," James said with a laugh. Linda rolled her eyes. "Fine, we don't have to wait for the boys."

"So…your news?"

James smiled shyly, face going red. "You go first."

"Alright. It's not as exciting as yours, from the looks of it. You know how the mayor's been putting pressure on Wally about the financial impact he's having on Keystone?"

James nodded. Ever since the Kobra attack, the city of Keystone had really started going after its heroes to help with cleanup. Piper's parents were protecting him from the brunt of the harassment, caving on some things and doing cleanup, and threatening the mayor back with their own army of fancy lawyers when the city was really taking advantage. But while Wally's persona was just as bit as public as Piper's, the poor boy didn't have disgustingly wealthy relatives to fall back on, and the mayor was basically trying to chase him out of town.

Piper, who was still friendly with quite a lot of supervillains, knew that the Flash was not, in fact, the source of Keystone City's supercrime woes, and figured that if the mayor did somehow manage to expel his friend the city would be picked clean in under a week.

Linda didn't look happy about her announcement, and James started to fear that Wally was starting to crack under pressure. "You guys aren't leaving Keystone, are you?"

"Hell no," Linda said. "I've worked too hard to get where I am at the station. We're not leaving, but the Flash is."

"But…Wally's the Flash."

"I know. He's decided to start commuting. Santa Marta wants a superhero, so he's decided to run to California in the morning, work from there, and come back evenings."

James pointedly glanced at the kitchen clock. "Superheroes don't seem to work regular hours. Plus you can't expect all the Rogues to pack up and follow the Flash to Santa Marta. How is this going to work?"

"It won't. But we figure eventually the idiots in City Hall will notice, they'll stop harassing us, and Wally will be able to go about his business like always. Now what's your news?"

James was about to tell her, when the front door was abruptly slammed open and indignant shouts reached them from the entryway.

"You cannot move to Connecticut! I thought I told you Canada was out; what makes you think Connecticut is any different?"

"Says the guy who just told me he's going to be working out of California now! I'm pretty sure you can take a detour to New England before you head out West in the morning to talk to your tech support, since clearly that's all I am if you think you can do this just as well on the West Coast as in Kansas! I did fucking move here from New York for you, you asshole!"

James let out a pained noise and rubbed at his eyes. Linda calmly checked her phone again, then looked at James with an amused smirk. "You're moving back to Connecticut then?"

"We're thinking about it."

"Not anymore!" Piper yelled as he stormed into the kitchen. "Here, call your mother." He thrust his cellphone at James. "Tell her we've made up our minds and we'll be there by the end of the week."

"Hart, I have to give at least two weeks notice at work."

"Boys, calm down," Linda said with a long suffering sigh. She waved at their empty seats at the table, and the two pissy looking superheroes sat down, folded their arms over their chests, and pouted like the overgrown children they were. Linda cleared her throat, and they both sat up a little straighter. "Guys, I'm with Wally. You're not allowed to move."

"What?"

"See!" Wally crowed. "We all know Linda's the smart one here, and she thinks it's a bad idea too!"

"But _he's_ moving!" Piper yelled.

"Hartley, we're calling the mayor's bluff," Linda said. "I don't think anyone here thinks Wally working out of Santa Marta is going to be long term."

"Yeah," Wally said. "Why the hell do you guys want to go to Connecticut anyway? I thought you liked it here. What's so special about friggin' Connecticut?"

Piper and James each traded a look and Linda let out an impatient sigh.

"Hon, same sex marriage is legal in Connecticut," Linda said.

"So?" Then a light bulb seemed to go off. "Wait…you guys are…you're thinking of…_really_?"

"Is it really that strange for us to want to?" Piper asked, a definite edge in his tone.

Wally stared at him with a puzzled frown. "I didn't see it coming. I mean, you're an unstable adrenaline junky superhero, like me. We're not really the settling down type, y'know?"

"And what does _that_ mean?" Linda snapped. "There are plenty of superheroes who've gotten married."

"I wouldn't say plenty. There are a couple."

And now everyone at the table looked pissed off for some reason or another. James chewed his lip nervously. He shot Hartley a pleading look, which he completely missed as he was glaring at Wally for his perceived bigotry.

"G-guys. Can we, um, step back for a minute and cool down before we keep biting each other's heads off?" James mumbled.

"You shouldn't use 'we' there, James," Linda said with a smirk. "You're the only one here using an indoor voice. Boys, he's right. We definitely shouldn't be snapping at each other. Wally, you're only behaving like a brat because you don't want your friend to move away, right?"

Wally was still pouting, but he nodded. "Dude, we don't see each other often enough as is."

"You're the busy one-"

"_Piper_," James and Linda snapped in unison.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Look, we didn't say we're definitely doing it. We're just thinking about it."

"But you're thinking seriously about it?" Wally asked. James and Piper both nodded. "Damn. Well my two cents are in. I don't want you to move away. You're like the only couple we can do dinners with other than Jay and Joan. And I love Jay and Joan, but those are old-people dinners. We always end up watching episodes of Lawrence Welk that Joan taped after our helpings of really bland pound cake."

"But our couple dinners are no reason for you guys to overlook your own needs," Linda said, throwing a warning look Wally's way. The statement seemed to appease Piper a little. Then she kept going. "On the other hand, I have to admit I'm surprised at you. Especially you, Hartley. This is your home and you're an activist. I kind of thought you'd stay and fight for equal rights instead of running away before the work was done."

Piper gaped at her in some shock, and he wasn't the only one. "I'll still fight for equal rights, but…Linda, this isn't just an abstract concept. This is my life we're talking about. I've found my one, and I don't want to wait however long it's going to take the bigots in Kansas and Missouri to recognize our partnership. I think it's great that there are elderly LGBTs getting married in Massachusetts and New York and the other states, but that doesn't mean I want to be seventy when I finally get to do this."

"I didn't realize you thought so highly of marriage. I've heard you refer to it as a flawed heterosexual institution before."

"It has a lot of symbolic meaning though," James said.

"More than just that, though that is important," Piper argued. "There are also lots of legal protections that go along with civil marriage-"

"Which won't make a difference with DOMA in place because marriage is still banned at the federal level! The movement still needs you to fight for it!" Linda insisted.

"And I can fight from Connecticut and still enjoy a certain degree of fair treatment in the meantime! I've been dealing with this shit for long enough. It'd be kind of nice to live someplace where I can go a week without a stranger calling me a disparaging name-"

"Oh, so you're packing it in over some name calling?" Linda snapped.

Piper glared at her. "Yes, breeder, tell me what it's like to be a gay man in the twin cities. Go ahead. Tell me how weak I am."

Linda returned his gaze with a disgusted one of her own. "And keep implying that the Korean American doesn't understand bigotry."

"Okay, so, we definitely need to do that cool down thing James was talking about!" Wally yelled nervously. He started rubbing Linda's shoulders, but she swatted his hands away. "Guys, seriously…we're still friends, right? We don't want to say things we'll regret, right?"

Piper got to his feet and, without saying another word, left the house. James looked at Wally and Linda in a panic, mumbled something even he didn't understand, and ran after his boyfriend.

He heard Wally make one last wisecrack before he got his coat on and got out the door.

"Hon, if they do get married in Connecticut, I think you just cost us our invite to the wedding."

Piper kept his mouth shut for the ride home. With how badly his temper had frayed, he was sure to get James mad at him too if he chanced to speak. James kept quiet himself, obviously upset over the disastrous dinner.

Piper wasn't an idiot. He knew his intentions to marry another man, even though it was a man he cared deeply for, wouldn't go over well with a lot of the important people in his life. His parents wouldn't want to be involved, and they might keep his sister from participating too. He'd at least hoped his best friend would want to be there. He'd really wanted Wally and Linda to be happy for them…

There was a light on in their kitchen when they got home. Piper was still wearing his costume from his and Wally's uneventful adventure downtown, and as he was pissy, he just wanted to change out of it, take a shower, listen to some music and go to bed. He definitely did not want to deal with whoever had broken into their kitchen.

James parked the car and turned to Piper wearing a look of concern. "We didn't leave the light on, did we?"

"Nope." Sighing, Piper got out of the car, unholstered a sound gun, and wearily started for the kitchen.

James followed after him and grabbed his arm. "Should you call Wally?"

"I'm more than capable of taking down a prowler. If that's even what this is. Jay? Don't worry, I've got this." Piper gave him a quick kiss and then went into the kitchen through the side door. He immediately holstered the sound gun again.

James Jesse was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. He jumped when Piper and James walked in.

James' face fell. "I take it you haven't talked to him yet?" he said coolly.

Piper shook his head. "Haven't had the chance," he muttered. "Tricks, what are you doing here?"

"Giving you a head's up, Pookie-"

"Will you stop fucking calling me Pookie?!" Both of the Jameses jumped. Piper rubbed at his temple with his fingers. "Sorry. It's been a long day."

"Uh…right. Anyway, there was a jailbreak tonight." There was definitely something off about Trickster's demeanor. He was exuding concern, and in a way Piper hadn't seen much of since they'd been involved. "I thought you oughta know that, um…Fury's on the loose."

Piper swallowed around a suddenly dry throat. He felt strangely hollow at the news. "F-Fury? You're sure? After all this time?"

He tapped a newspaper he'd left on the table. "He didn't make the front page, but there's still a pretty extensive write-up about it. Piper…you're gonna be okay, right?"

He gave himself a little shake. "Yes. Of course I…I'm fine. Thanks for letting me know, James. I appreciate it."

"Okay. Give me a call if you need to." James Jesse gave his shoulder a squeeze and, probably sensing how much his presence wasn't wanted by Piper's boyfriend, and for once respecting that, he left.

Piper sat down heavily in the kitchen chair and took a few controlled breaths.

James sat down across from him. "Hart, who's Fury?"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Wally's decision to work out of Santa Marta comes from Flash #122: Running Away from Home by writers Brian Augustyn and Mark Waid, art by Paul Ryan and John Nyberg. And that cliffie was obviously the build up for the 1997 Flash Annual story Sound and Fury, by Michael Jan Friedman (writer), John Cassaday (pencils), and Steve Lightle (ink). Hope I didn't get too preachy for your tastes in this chapter. As a politically active member of the LGBT community, these are the discussions I end up having with friends and family, and I tried to portray it without sounding too much like propaganda. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

James was incredibly surprised the next morning when he woke up to an empty bed. Feeling a bit unsettled, he showered and got dressed, and when he got to the kitchen he found Hartley sitting at the table brooding over the newspaper Trickster had left behind.

Try as James might, all he could get out of Hartley about this mysterious Fury was that the two of them had worked together back when the Pied Piper was still a supervillain. There was definitely more to it than that, but Hartley wasn't ready to talk about it.

Which was incredibly irritating. They'd been discussing _marriage_; you'd think the guy could discuss his past a little with his potential future husband.

"Hart…are you still up from last night?"

Piper smirked. "Not exactly. I slept for a few hours, but I wasn't really tired so…I made us breakfast."

The memory of Hartley's last attempt at cooking brought what must have been a look of terror to James' face, because Hartley looked a little offended. "You can relax. I didn't really cook anything. I went to a bakery, bought some danishes, and heated them for us. I did make the coffee myself though."

"Thanks, sweetie. That was nice." James lightly brushed his fingers against Hartley's shoulder, the warm gesture earning him a small smile, and then he went to the counter and poured them both coffees. He couldn't help but notice that even though Hartley had gone through the trouble of procuring food he barely touched it himself. James wrapped up most of Hartley's danish as leftovers when he rinsed off their dishes.

And Hartley was still pretending everything was normal while acting thoroughly abnormal. James decided to bait him a little. "So…"

"So what?" Hartley asked, a beat too quick to sound as casual as he would have liked.

"So are you going after this fellow Fury?" James asked pointedly. Piper blathered some almost rote response at him rather mechanically; it seemed to address James' point, but he didn't really say anything.

Definitely irritated at this point, but not wanting to start another fight, James decided to just ask what he wanted to know. Piper had said he and Fury used to work together, that they'd been partners.

Was that business partners, or…the other thing?

"Um…are you sure there's not a little attraction going on here?" James asked, taking pains to hold Piper's gaze. A part of him didn't want to know the answer. The last thing he needed right now was another Trickster.

"Attraction…?" Piper repeated, expression troubled. He looked trapped. "Oh, you mean the life I used to lead. The glamor and everything."

Wow. How thick could he be?

"There is, isn't there?" James pushed. "An attraction, I mean."

'Just say it, Hart,' James thought bitterly. 'You've got another crazy ex-boyfriend and you're worried about him coming after you. Just say it. Open up.'

Hartley, however, continued in the manner he'd opened with. "What can I say? Being a scoundrel is fun. Much more fun than being on the other side of the fence. But I'm older and wise now. I know how crazy dangerous all that stuff was. No way I'd resort to my old habits. Scout's honor."

James stared at him incredulously a moment, then hurried to grab his coat and his briefcase. Hartley seemed to realize he'd screwed up, because he rushed after James and grabbed his arm. "Hey, I mean it. You've got nothing to worry about. Really."

"Uh-huh," James mumbled. "Listen, I've got to get going. I'm supposed to be at the mall in twenty minutes. Got to design those new facades. It may not be as exciting as robbing banks, but someone's got to do it."

Piper looked positively wounded when James walked out the door.

* * *

><p>Piper sat back down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. Earl's picture was still staring at him from the newspaper, and his impressively tousled head was the last thing Piper wanted to see at the moment. He crumbled the paper and threw it in the recycling.<p>

Damn Trickster for bringing this up in front of James.

It would help though, if Piper knew how he wanted to respond to all this mess. In all honesty, he hadn't thought much of Earl in years. This wasn't reflection he wanted to get into, not when his personal life was demanding enough invasive reflection without Earl in the mix.

Piper tapped his fingers against the table, thrumming with nervous energy. He knew he needed to do something. Earl had never been much of a danger to society, but he had a short temper and he made poor choices when he felt cornered. The tension that came from being on the run could easily drive him to do something stupid, and stupidity turned to danger remarkably quickly when one was wearing a silly spandex suit. Piper had to find him.

And maybe help him…

"No. No, Hartley, just focus on finding him for now."

Piper got up and went to get his costume.

* * *

><p>James was having a difficult time focusing on work. Thankfully, this particular gig had a lot of freedom to it, and he didn't have nosy coworkers breathing down his neck while he scoped out the Petitte Mall. He sat down on a bench, pulled a sketchpad out of his briefcase, and half-heartedly tried to whip up a few ideas to submit to his clients, but when his mind kept wandering he pulled out his laptop instead.<p>

He connected to the mall's wi-fi and started looking into Fury. There really wasn't much on him. As far as James could tell, the guy hadn't been a successful super criminal. In fact, the only big scores he had listed were ones he'd worked with Piper, and the articles heavily implied that the Pied Piper was the mastermind of those operations.

James found an old photograph of the two of them and gave a small start of surprise. He'd expected, from what little he'd been able to get out of his boyfriend, that Piper and Fury had probably worked together ages ago; before he and Piper had even met. But the Piper in that picture didn't look terribly different from the introverted young man who'd moved in down the hall from James back when they'd both lived in Keystone.

Piper must have worked with Fury right before he started dating the Trickster.

James clicked on the picture and set it to full screen so he could study it more easily. His stomach churned when he recognized a familiar vapid expression on Piper's face. If Piper hadn't dated Fury, at the very least he'd wanted to.

And if Piper started dating Trickster shortly after that picture had been taken…did that mean James Jesse had successfully stolen Piper from a boyfriend in the past?

James shut down the laptop, stuffed it back in his briefcase, and slouched down against the bench in dejection. Why had he thought snooping would make him feel better? He took a few deep breaths, willing himself to calm down.

'James, either you trust Hartley or you don't. He's said that he picked you, and that he doesn't want the Trickster. He most certainly doesn't want to be with Fury, otherwise he would have broken him out of jail when he was still a supervillain.' It all made sense. There was no reason to feel so threatened. So why couldn't he stop feeling threatened?

While he was still plaguing himself with insecurities, James found himself suddenly in physical peril as the wall of the mall blew out. He started running in the opposite direction of the smoking hole, along with a lot of other bystanders, when a barrage of energy blasts made them all duck where they were.

When the smoke cleared a bit, James was able to make out the form of a psychotic criminal, firing some kind of blaster weapon at half a dozen policemen. The Central City PD had to have some of the worst shots in the country; not a single officer managed to hit the costumed loon before he got them.

Then James got a better look at the guy. He felt like he was going to throw up.

It was Fury.

"I see things haven't changed much in ten years. Cops're still stupid enough to try to lock horns with me. Anyone else feeing stupid today?" the desperate looking thug yelled.

"Who are you?" some lady who clearly had no experience being a hostage demanded. "What do you want?"

"What, you don't recognize me? Are you serious?" Fury roared. James wisely bit back a comment about how the guy had essentially been hired help to a real Rogue before getting locked away for ten years, so really why should they know who he was? His escape hadn't even been front page news.

Fury dated himself further by going on a rant disparaging the Flash and threatening his city. It was definitely old-school style, to the point where James was surprised Fury didn't start cackling like a loon at the end.

Of course, he could have been intending a good cackle, but he was interrupted by a figure prowling around the hole he'd made in the wall.

James' stomach sank. Hartley walked right into Fury's line of sight without a single weapon drawn. And the God damn crazy psychopath was aiming a gun right at Hartley's chest.

At least it didn't seem to faze him. He took a few slow steps towards Fury, arms at his sides and well away from any of his sound guns. "Earl…"

"The name's _Fury_. I thought you would've remembered that, Piper. Hell, you remembered other things-like the places we were going to hit. Otherwise, the cops never would've corralled me at the Fairwelder. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised, though. I heard you went straight-and-narrow…I just didn't want to believe it."

Their eyes were locked on each other, and there was definitely more going on than their conversation related. The whole atmosphere was incredibly charged.

James was certain that they had dated. Apparently his lover sucked at choosing boyfriends.

"It's funny," Fury continued. "I pulled those jobs at least partly to bring you out in the open. Even with the rumors, I figured maybe you had a thirst for revenge, too. Seems I figured wrong."

"Buddy, you don't know how wrong," Piper snapped before pulling out a flute.

A flute. When Piper had reformed he'd stopped hypnotizing people. He'd said he didn't feel comfortable violating peoples' freewill, though he was still willing to do it under dire circumstances. Despite the room full of hostages (of which James was one) things didn't seem terribly dire yet. Either Piper knew something about Fury that wasn't apparent to the bystanders and police force, or he just wanted this confrontation to end as quickly as possible.

Well, whatever the reason, it didn't work. Fury was wearing ear filters.

A bunch of police officers, probably figuring that Piper's hypnotism had worked, tried to rush them but Fury fired on them and they beat a hasty retreat. "Now where were we? Oh yeah, I remember now," Fury growled, fixing a look of loathing on Hartley. "You were trying to hypnotize me with your pipe. And I was wondering why I ever took you for a partner in the first place."

To James' surprise and horror, the weak dig seemed to hit its mark. Piper's troubled expression was obvious even distorted from his visor and distance. He tried to plead with Fury, tried to reason with him, and was still obviously not willing to draw a sonic gun as he did so. James was forced to conclude that Piper didn't want to hurt the raving maniac.

Fury ranted at him in response, and then he growled something that chilled James' blood. "And while we're on the subject…did I tell you how much I hate it when a partner turns on me?" He fixed his blaster back on Piper, this time aiming at his face.

James couldn't breathe. Fury was going to shoot Hartley down and he wasn't fighting. Where the hell was the Flash? Why hadn't Piper called Wally? James could see his briefcase. It was only a few feet away. He could get it, get his phone, call Wally…Piper couldn't just stand there and let that bastard shoot him.

But he _was_ just standing there. He looked nervous, though he didn't seem fussed about the sizable gun trained on him. Instead his eyes were darting around, looking with worry at the crowd. And then he finally noticed his terrified boyfriend standing off to the side.

James' panic wasn't going to help anything. He willed himself to calm down, keep the fear at bay. Piper was going to be okay. He _had_ to be okay.

"You'd better pay attention when I'm talking, Music Boy," Fury sneered. "I said _pay attention_!"

Fury finally fired, but he was so enraged that he missed his mark entirely. The blast went sailing over Piper's head and hit a pillar just behind James. James tried to duck out of the way, but he couldn't avoid all the debris. A falling chunk of column struck his back, he fell to the ground, and then half the wall collapsed on top of him.

Everything went black. James could hear shouts as though from a great distance, but he couldn't move. He could barely breathe, and every time he did his chest screamed with pain. Everything hurt.

After a seeming eternity the rubble was cleared away and he could see again. Hartley was crouched over him, beautiful blue eyes shining with concern. "You're going to be all right. You've got to be."

"Hart…?" James gasped.

Hartley let out a shaking breath and braced an arm around James' back. He dropped a quick kiss on top of his head.

"F-Fury…is he…?"

"Done, my man," Piper said shakily. "Stick a fork in him."

James all but collapsed against him. "You know, when I made that damsel in distress joke before…I didn't actually _want_ to take on the role."

"Are you okay?" Piper whispered. "Here, let me help you…" They unsteadily made it to their feet and Hartley supported him while he lurched his way outside where ambulances were waiting.

They passed Fury on their way. He was being shoved along by a couple of irritated looking Central cops, and he was impressively banged up. The entire left side of his face was cut up and his rat's nest of hair had been matted to his skull with blood.

"What did you do to him?" James asked weakly. It looked like one of Fury's legs was broken, and he was wincing every time the cop on his right put pressure on his arm.

"Crushed him," Piper said simply. James was hoping for more elaboration, but Piper didn't give any (he'd find out from a news report later that night that the crushing hadn't been a euphemism, but that Piper had literally crushed him with a larger, heavier chunk of the mall than what Fury had dropped on James).

Piper helped James into an ambulance and then made to get into the back with him, but the EMT shooed him away. "Sorry sir, policy. You can't ride along."

Piper glanced down at his dusty, bloodied up superhero costume. "I'm not just a costume. That's my boyfriend and I'd like to go with him."

"It's policy," the EMT repeated icily.

"Hart, s'okay," James said with a little wheeze. "I'll meet up with you."

"Okay…" Piper stalked away, looking irritable.

* * *

><p>Linda looked at her phone in some trepidation, picked it up, and then set it back on the table again. She went for it one more time, then considered her boyfriend, who was sitting in the living room playing video games. Having just gotten back from Santa Marta, he was still wearing the Flash costume (but he'd pulled the cowl down).<p>

"Hey hon, have you talked to Piper lately?" she asked.

And Wally proved himself annoying perceptive (why did he only choose to use it when it worked against her?). "Sorry Linda, but I'm not sticking my foot in this mess! It's _your_ mess! Talk to Piper on your own!"

Linda scowled. "I was just hoping you could feel him out for me. Tell me how much I pissed him off."

The video game went silent, and seconds later Wally was leaning against the kitchen table glancing down at her work stuff. He quirked an eyebrow. "You're covering the thing at the mall with Fury?"

Linda's face colored, but she nodded. "My boss astutely pointed out that I'm friends with Piper, so…"

"So you need to mend fences for work?" Wally snapped, looking disgusted.

"No! Honestly, I feel horrible about the way things went last night, really!" It was the truth. She didn't regret what she'd said, just how she'd said it. When your friends told you they were thinking of getting married, it was beyond rude to call them cowards the very first thing.

Wally continued silently judging her.

Scowling, Linda snatched up her cellphone and called Piper herself. It rang for kind of a while, but just before going to voicemail Piper answered. And he already sounded pissed off.

"Hey Hartley, do you have a minute? I wanted to apologize about last night-"

"Believe me Linda, that is the _last_ thing on my mind right now. Although I must confess, I'm being confirmed in my intentions to ditch the red states and relocate somewhere less shitty."

"Hartley…what's going on?"

Wally tried to ask her a question, but Linda impatiently waved him away, turned in her seat, and gave the phone call her full attention. She could hear some labored breathing from Piper's end of the line. "Sweetie? What's wrong?"

"They won't let me in."

"What? Who won't let you where?" Linda asked.

"The hospital. James is-they won't let me see him. Because we're gay."

"James is in the hospital?" Linda yelped. "What the hell happened? Is he okay? Piper, talk to me. What's going on?"

"What hospital are they at?" Wally asked.

"I don't know, that's not important," Linda snapped. "Hartley, how badly is he hurt? If he's not being restricted to family-only then there's no reason for them to-"

"I know that, but it's still not making those bigots let me see him!"

"Sweetie, keep calm. You're not going to argue your case very well if you let your emotions run away with…hello?" Linda threw her phone against the table.

"He hung up on you, didn't he?"

She bit her lip, but begrudgingly nodded.

"Yeah, see, that wasn't the time to lecture him on his people skills."

"Got that, thanks. Now's not the time to be lippy with your girlfriend either."

Wally disappeared in a blur of red. He dropped a bouquet of daisies onto her lap and kissed her cheek, but then he left, ostensibly to go help his friend.

Linda looked at the outline she'd already made for her story about Fury. She considered her notes, then opened her laptop and started searching for information on hospital visitation rights.

* * *

><p>Wally checked in three different hospitals before he found the visiting room Piper was brooding in. The poor guy was slumped down in an uncomfortable looking plastic chair, still wearing his costume (he'd taken the visor off though) and looking utterly miserable.<p>

Wally ran out and returned a few seconds later with a change of clothes and a coffee for his friend. "Hey dude. How's James doing?"

"Damned if I know. No one's talking to me."

"How badly was he hurt?" Wally asked.

Piper sighed. "It didn't…I mean, he was hit with a lot of debris, but it didn't look life threatening. You don't think he's…he's in real danger and that's why they're keeping me out here?"

"Whoa, calm down dude, calm right down." Wally pressed the coffee cup into Piper's shaking hand. "Why don't you drink your coffee and change into real clothes, and I'll see if I can get the story, okay?"

Piper's head dropped, his gaze focused rather insistently on the ground. Wally rubbed one of his shaking shoulders, sure that he could have this all cleared up in no time. Then, to his horror, he noticed that Piper was crying.

'I should have brought Linda,' Wally thought, feeling some honest fear. He didn't do well when people started crying. He gave Piper's shoulder one more squeeze, then went off to find someone who looked like an administrative-type.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, James was in no kind of mortal danger. He had a few cracked ribs, a fat lip, a lot of cuts and bruises, and a sprained wrist. He was waiting to hear about the results of the x-ray on his wrist, and expecting to be discharged once it was confirmed that the wrist was sprained and that he wouldn't need a cast.<p>

He was also wondering where the hell his boyfriend was. Considering Hartley had tried to climb into the ambulance with him, he'd expected to see him at the hospital by now. James wasn't in the best of moods, having just been violently attacked by his lover's crazy ex, and he thought he wasn't out of line in expecting some sympathetic cuddles.

The next time a nurse came in to check on him he decided it was worth asking about. "Excuse me, um…has anyone come by to see me?"

"Oh don't worry sir, you won't be here long enough to need to worry about visitors. You should be ready to go in another hour at the absolute most."

James frowned. "That's not what I asked. I, um, I thought my, well…have you seen a red haired man in a green superhero costume out in the waiting room? If he's here, I actually really would like to see him."

To his surprise, she smirked at him. It wasn't in innocent amusement either; there was something derisive in her expression after that. "Oh…you're _that_ fellow. Don't worry about it, sir. You'll be out of here in no time."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Excuse me. You're not my only patient, you know." And then she turned on her heel and left.

James stared after her in stunned disbelief. He made to get up off the cot he'd been resting on, but on second thought, he sat back down. His throat was a little too tight to speak properly anyway.

An hour passed without anyone checking on him. Considering everyone had said he'd be released before that, it struck James as a little odd. But this wasn't his first experience in an emergency room, and he knew how notoriously unreliable time estimates could be when priorities got shuffled around as new patients came in and situations changed. He even convinced himself that the last nurse he'd spoken to really hadn't been _terribly_ rude…

Another half hour passed and he started feeling antsy. He was tired, thirsty, aching everywhere, and bored on top of it all. This was the real reason he'd wanted his boyfriend to wait with him; company. Hospitals absolutely sucked when you were alone. At least Hartley could have gone out and grabbed him a soda or a book or something.

James carefully eased himself off the cot and, groaning or stifling a groan with each step, made his way to the door of his little room. There were plenty of people passing him in the hallway, but it took him a few tries to get someone to stop and speak with him.

"Ex-Excuse me…excuse, um, hey! Hey, could you help me?"

A middle aged woman in Charlie Brown scrubs stopped and smiled at him. "What can I do for you, darling?"

"I'm sorry, I know everyone's busy and I don't want to be a pain but…I've just been sitting here for over an hour, and I was told my x-rays would be back by now and I'd probably get to leave. Could you tell someone that I'm still waiting? I think I might have been forgotten."

"You know, that might be the case. We've been real busy in here tonight. A whole crowd of folks came in from the mall-"

"I'm one of them," James interjected.

That seemed to surprise her. "Huh. I'd thought all those folks had been discharged by now. I'll get right on that for you, sunshine."

"Thank you."

James started back for the cot, and the woman noticed him struggling. She came up beside him, took his arm, and helped him walk the rest of the way. "You're in pain, aren't you?"

James nodded.

"Didn't anyone give you anything for that?"

"W-when I first came in," James said breathily as he got back onto the cot. "It must be wearing off by now."

She looked around the cold little room, no doubt noticing the lack of personal effects. "Hasn't anyone been in to see you while you've been waiting? Do you need to call someone?"

"I…I thought, I mean my boyfriend was supposed to meet me here, but-"

"Boyfriend?" she repeated. "Oh my word, no. That'll never do. I'm sorry, but we have a policy here. Do you have anyone else you can call?"

The EMT worker had mentioned a policy too. James was sure that if Piper had been present, he'd have been filled with indignation and anger at the blatant discrimination. All James could feel was hurt to offset the physical pains, and something he hadn't felt since high school: shame.

"You know lady, you're a sucky excuse for a caregiver," James whispered.

The woman's face hardened. "I take it that's a no then. You know, if you don't have a responsible emergency contact, that really should tell you something about the sinful lifestyle you're leading. I'll go find someone and see if we can't figure out how we're going to get you on your way." She threw him a fake smile and left.

James sat back against the wall, feeling miserable, and oddly defeated. He'd put up with this shit for almost seven years now. Granted, the discrimination he'd faced in Central and Keystone had never been as serious as this before, but all the little digs he faced in his day to day life were adding up and taking their toll. Connecticut hadn't been perfect, but at least he knew he could sue the pants off of someone over this sort of treatment.

And besides, after a suck day like this he really wanted to go home and hug his mom.

He was going to have to have another conversation with Piper. Maybe it was ultimatum time.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Some dialogue and action shamelessly taken from the Flash annual cited last chapter._

_And now some notes on discrimination against GLBTs in regards to hospital visitation. I'm very happy to write that situations like what Piper and James faced in this chapter are now illegal in United States hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs (as of January 2011; thank you Mr. Obama!) When I was first getting involved in marriage equality activism back in high school, this was one of the scenarios that came up repeatedly in pro-same-sex marriage propaganda, because it's horrifying. I remember hearing all kinds of awful stories about people being separated from their dying partners by cold hearted family members who had actually disowned the LGBT person. Saying hospital visitation is a privilege not a right is hate in its purest form (looking at you, Mitt Romney), and if you need any more proof then look up what happened to Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond in 2007. Anyway, I'll get down from my soapbox now and finish this rant up. I'm aware that even the reddest of red state hospitals lacking in all LGBT discrimination laws can't get away with this shit in 2013, but my story has not reached the present yet.  
><em>

_As always, thank you everyone for reading, and please take the time to review so I know what you think of my scribbles :)  
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